Bibliolatry - the hidden idolatry.

[Heidi]

Yes, and If I could simply add...When Revelation was ''written'' that was the end of it...While God still speaks to us individually, he does not send prophets any longer....The next time we see a prophet from God will mean that the end is upon us....

Every time someone claims to be a prophet from God, we get a new cult...End of story...

Yup. And in fact, there is a verse in the OT where God tells us he will not send any more prophets but I can't find it at the moment. And when God speaks to us individually, it will never disagree with the bible because the indwelling Holy Spirit is the same Spirit with which the bible was written. So they will never contradict each other.

 

[francisdesales]

You are making the presumption that the Catholic church is the church....
This is a false presumption...The church is anyplace where two or more are gathered....in ''HIS'' name....

The fact of the matter is this...The real Christians have been running from the Catholic church since the first century...Here are some interesting quotes...

Real Christians are running from the Catholic Church? You should be a comedian... What IS a real Christian? Can you give me a verse that defines it?

It is wishful and dishonest history to think that the Anabaptists or the Baptists of today, for that matter, have been around even 1000 years removed from Tertulian. Even the Southern Baptist website denies such fantasies...

The bible does speak of the Catholic Church...It is found here...Most end time scholars believe this to be so.....

Rev 17:6 I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. And when I saw her, I marveled with great amazement[/b].

:P John, a Catholic, writes about his own church like that? You have a knack for taking things out of context and cutting and pasting them to suit your purposes of dividing the Body. Does it make you feel good that you bring division to Christ's Body?

 

[jgredline]

:P John, a Catholic, writes about his own church like that? You have a knack for taking things out of context and cutting and pasting them to suit your purposes of dividing the Body. Does it make you feel good that you bring division to Christ's Body?

: You just called the Apostle John a Catholic...LOL......

Do you believe this monster is simply a backslidden or apostate church like many of our Christian leaders tell us, or is she the whore of Revelation? Let's look at scripture and check it out for ourselves. We find in chapter 17 of the Book of Revelation the Bible says, "I will show unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters:" And, of course, in scripture the reference to many waters means multitudes of people. Today the Vatican boasts almost one billion followers. What's that, almost a quarter of the earth's population?

And it says, "With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication." If you look back in history you will see that almost every king has had political, economic or religious ties with the Vatican, starting with Constantine the Great, who was actually the first pope, and presided over the first council. Constantine was never saved. (That was another smokescreen.) Most nations today have diplomatic representatives in the Vatican.

"And the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication." We have just looked at the madness of World War II and how it was set up by the Jesuits. And the Bible goes on to say, "The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet." These are the official colors of the Vatican. "And decked with gold and precious stones and pearls." Did you know the Vatican is the wealthiest organization on the face of the earth? Later in the book I'll go into this in more detail. The Bible goes on to say, "And on her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT." Where did Catholicism come from? If you do a little research you'll find it came from the ancient Babylonian mysteries, and you can trace it right back to Nimrod and Semiramis. Only the names were changed to make it look like a Christian organization.

"...Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird." Rev. 18:2

"The Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the earth." Can I name a few abominations that came from Rome? We have the Nazi Party, which was staffed with Jesuits and high ranking Catholics. And then we have the communist party, another offshoot, or branch of the mother of harlots.

Swastika Hammer and sickle

Listen to these names: Marx, Engels, Stalin, Lenin, Fidel Castro. All were trained and guided by Jesuits. We are publishing two new books that go into detail on this. So these are her babies. Just a few of them, not to mention some of the spirit cults like voodoo. In the voodoo creed they state that, along with their religion of demon possession, they believe in "the holy Roman Catholic church."

The Bible goes on to say, "And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints." The Roman Catholic Institution tortured, maimed and murdered 68 million people during the Spanish Inquisition alone, and many of these were Bible-believing Christians.

Torture devices used in the inquisition
The New Book of Martyrs

Representation of the tortures used in the Inquisition.

Who would you say the whore of Revelation is? Is it something that will come in the future, or are we stuck with it right now? Beloved, it is obvious the whore of Revelation is the Roman Catholic Institution, and God hates it! He wants His people to come out of it so that His love can be manifested. God says, "If you love me, keep my commandments." (John 14:15)

At the end of the Dark Ages, when the popes ruthlessly controlled Europe, God raised up Christian men and women who knew the Bible and loudly proclaimed that the deadly Roman Catholic Institution was the whore of Revelation.

http://www.chick.com/reading/books/153/153_04.asp

 

[stranger]

God did send people to give us his word. All we have to do is believe his word. So why do you think he needs to send us more prophets when many Christians don't believe the apostles & prophets he did send? :o Since the bible is God's word it would take more than a lifetime to understand everything in it. So asking for more prophets is only asking for trouble because anyone can claim he's a prophet. That's not hard at all. As jesus tells us "The only sign this generation will receive is the sign of Jonah." ;-)

Hi Heidi,

There are a couple of things here - in many parts of the world people don't have bibles or access to a bible in their own language. The work of bible translators is still going on.

Do you consider or describe yourself as a Protestant? Some Protestants believe that all prophesy has ceased, meaning that there were no more prophets after the ones mentioned in the new testament. But other Protestants, including some prominent reformers, admitted that prophesy could still occur in exceptional circumstances.

It is true that anyone can claim to be a prophet, but very few can make the claim with God's approval. This gets us back to the point that Saphir is trying to make in his article. . .If you were to meet a genuine prophet from the Lord do you think you would accept him/his message? Or do you think that you would reject it on the basis of your understanding of the written word? That would be an example of bibliolatry.

Where in the bible does it say that prophesy has ceased, in Hebrews 1:1,2?? (this should probably be a separate tread).

 

[cyberjosh]

And I am supposed to know you took the pastor's sermon out of context to suit your own purpose? Very well, my objection is with you and your interpretation. Now, which one makes more sense, yours or mine? I will let you judge.

I don't wish to be arrogant so I want to say off the bat that I am not claiming an infallibility on my idea of what the passage means. I could be wrong, I'm big enough to fess up to something if I make a blunder. However let me just explore this a little bit longer and see what we can some up with. I just wanted you to take your arguement up with me. Although I will explore something else I just remembered from the sermon below.

He was speaking off the top of his head because he was beside himself! Who wouldn't be amazed and flabbergasted, seeing 2 apparitions and Jesus clothed in white shining in glory. What does this have to do with Jesus telling Peter not to venerate - which strangely enough, is not in any Scripture that I have read... I see Peter's reaction as a normal one for his personality. Remember, the guy was brash and down to earth, not one given to theological reflection and subtle commentary.

I believe one thing that was pivotal in the way that pastor interpreted what he was reading was on the definition and purpose of the "booths" Peter offered to set up. There are differing interpretations on it, and perhaps the Pastor took the wrong one, however let me try to show the basis of what I think he thought. The main interperative difference between commentators is whether Peter sought to set up a commemorative booth (a monument/altar of sorts - kind like how the Israelites set up 12 stones form the Jordan to commemorate their crossing) or if he meant it more in the definition of its function of a tabernacle (for Jesus and the Prophets to stay and commune longer with them). I think the pastor took the first one but may have misunderstod it to mean that Peter was trying to set up an idolatrous monument to honor the prophets as well as Jesus - when that is not necessarily the connotation.

Now my commentary Bible's take the position that he wanted them to stay longer (the second position above) but the first position also has some credence of its own (without the Pastor's idea behind the reason for them) though.

-------

I actually think you would enjoy reading this article as it is intellectual and even does a very interesting word study, but here is a relevant excerpt from it which may shed some light on this:

Let us first consider St. Peter’s response to witnessing Christ’s Transfiguration. Why should Peter's response be to build a skéné, and what type of skéné might he have had in mind? Most likely he did not intend any type of tent in which a person might literally dwell. But could he have meant three grass and twig huts such as are used at the Feast of Tabernacles? Perhaps his was a natural response of wishing to commemorate a theophany by creating some type of memorial associated linguistically, and therefore, symbolically, with the Holy of Holies in Jerusalem where God’s Holy Presence, His Shekhinah, dwelt. It seems to be a universal human experience throughout history that people have wished to build some sort of memorial chapel or shrine to commemorate a sacred eventâ€â€a theophany or a miracle.

A second basic question about the accounts of the Transfiguration is, of all the Old Testament prophets and saints, why was it Elias and Moses who appeared with Christ? What is the significance of the appearance of these two prophets, and might they be involved in some way with the experience of the Shekhinah? Could the answers to these two questions also explain St. Peter's impulse to create three skénai to commemorate the Shekhinah? Indeed, we suggest that there is an important relationship, as shall be explained.

The relationship, and linguistic relationship, the author speaks of is actually quite interesting because it demonstrated how the Greek word skene may be a transliteration of the cognates s k n from Mishkan (a tabernacle) the root of which is sakan (which means to pitch a tent) from which the intertestamental word Shekinah comes from. The article's foot note deal with it thusly:

The third Hebrew word translated as skéné is mishkan. This is the most interesting translation, because the Hebrew word means "tabernacle" or "dwelling-place," connoting a permanent dwelling, whereas a tent connotes an impermanent structure. In Kittel’s Theological Dictionary of the new Testament. Vol. 7 (Ed. by Gerhard Friedrich and Gerhard Eittel, Trans. G.W. Bromiley, Eerdman Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1964), the author proposes that the reason that the Septuagint translators chose skéné as the natural, inevitable word-equivalent of mishkan is that they both contain the same three consonants, s k n, in the same sequence. Consequently, the meaning and use of the word skéné in the New Testament is shaped and molded by its antecedents in the Septuagint.

And in a second foot note the author again writes:

The Hebrew word, Shekhinah (sekina), which became a substitute for the Holy Name of Yahweh, is an important term for understanding the biblical conception of the nature of God. Shekhinah signifies all the awesome, mystical, Power and Holiness of God's Presence, especially as localized in the Holy of Holies, first in Moses’ Tabernacle in the wilderness, and later in the Temple in Jerusalem. The word is derived, interestingly, from the Hebrew root, sakan, meaning "to pitch a tent," which is the same root from which mishkan (the most common Hebrew word used to refer to the Tabernacle of Moses) is also derived. Furthermore, Shekhinah has the same three consonants, s k n, as does mishkan and skéné (the Greek word usually chosen to Translate mishkan).

With all this in mind what conclusion does the author come to?

"Did Peter have in mind the involved incarnational theology of John’s Gospel, the Apocalypse and Hebrews when he impulsively blurted out  "Let us make three skénai: one for You, one for Moses, and one for Elias" (Mark 9:5)? It is most unlikely, since at that time Peter did not yet understand Christ’s Nature, nor his mission, not to mention the theology that would only evolve later on. However, Peter was speaking as a devout Jew, who probably instinctively associated the skéné form (some type of tabernacle/memorial) with a manifestation of the Divine Presence as experienced by Moses, and made concrete in the Tabernacle of Meeting/Witness in the wilderness."

In other words the author thinks Peter offered to build skenai (plural of skene) in order to outwardly symbolize the divine Shekina which dwelt in the OT tabernacle (mishkan) to commemorate Christ's glory manifested (Shekinah) - almost in a play on words.

Tell me your thoughts on the article.

God Bless,

~Josh

 

[cyberjosh]

Just for the heck of it since I opened up that discussion of skene, etc. on the last page, here is an interesting extra tid bit which rehashes a bit on what was just said, which I wrote in this thread:

"Something additionally interesting to note is that that word "dwelt/tabernacled" is translated from the Greek word skenoo which was passed into the Greek from the Hebrew cognate SKN which is translated several times in the OT as "tabernacled" (meaning to pitch a tent to dwell). From that Hebrew word we get the word Shekinah, as in God's Shekinah glory, which "dwelt" in the Tabernacle and later in the Temple. John 1:14 shows in powerful imagery Jesus being God in the form of the Word, indwelling his Shekinah Presence in human flesh (a physical body -symbolic of a tent in the OT). And remember Jesus refered to his body as a Temple. This is in keeping with God dwelling among us. This is the meaning of Immanuel. "

 

[francisdesales]

I don't wish to be arrogant so I want to say off the bat that I am not claiming an infallibility on my idea of what the passage means. I could be wrong, I'm big enough to fess up to something if I make a blunder.

Well, then does the Holy Spirit give you the correct interpretation or not? It seems you are being more reasonable by saying the above.

With all this in mind what conclusion does the author come to?

I think you are majoring in the minors of the pericope. The key portion is that the Law and the Prophets are pointing to Christ AND the Voice says "listen to Him". Listen to what? That the Scriptures and Christ tell the apostles that Jesus, the Messiah, is to be killed for the sake of man's sins. Listen to Him, not your own ideas of political saviors.

The discussion on booths is a secondary issue that deviates from the point of the Scriptures. Nor do I see anywhere that Peter is told his veneration is disapproved of. That is not the intent of the Voice. Jesus says nothing about it. He seems awfully quiet for someone who "hates veneration".

Considering that we love God BY loving others, it is incomprehensible to me how someone could say that veneration and honor given to another is against God's plans...



Regards