LanaPodesta
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The perpetual virginity of the Theotokos was taught before the Bible was canonised. If you argument is that it's not in the Bible, well, neither is the doctrine of the Trinity.
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Why do members of non-Apostolic churches believe in the Trinity?
- Thread starter LanaPodesta
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- Apr 2, 2003
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Reason.
Which is relevant how?
It isn’t in the Bible; not even a hint. However, as I have stated more than once, the foundations of the Trinity are in the Bible. You’re not being honest in this discussion.
LanaPodesta
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Does it say it in the Bible tho
You're saying the Church is wrong to teach it? Yet both the doctrine and the Church predate the Bible. Or are the apostles wrong?
Sure. They support the ecclesiastical doctrine of the Trinity.
Mornin' LanaPodesta
Thanks for your replies. How long have you been a believer? I ask, because you seem to be operating under some fairly untrue and non-sensical paradigms. Let me respond to your points, but first, let me ask you, have you read the Scriptures? For you to be able to make a studied and intelligent argument for or against something, then you need to be familiar with what it is that you're arguing for or against. And I don't mean, have you been attending a fellowship of believers where they teach the Scriptures. Have you actually sat yourself down over a course of days and read the Scriptures? All that God has revealed about Himself and the world in which we live and what His Son has also revealed to us concerning the things of God and what it is that God is working to do in this realm of His creating.
You know, there are some who say of the many prophetic writings that have been proved to be accurate, that they were writings that were added in later. That they are accurate because someone added them in after the event that they foretell had already happened. Therefore, they are accurate but not really prophecies. But that denies one the basic concepts of human behavior. If a work has been around for several decades and then someone goes in and hundreds of years later adds things in, there is a great uproar about it. It of course, also denies that person's understanding that the Scriptures, as Paul says, came from God and were written as His Holy Spirit directed the writers to write of things.
Similarly, you're trying to make an argument that somehow translators have gotten translations wrong while there are literally millions of people who are familiar with the languages and would cause an uproar had some translator mistranslated a work. I would like you to sit back and put your thinking cap on and consider whether your argument that we can't trust the Scriptures because we can't trust the translator's work could really possibly hold water. If what you claim is true, then we'd likely have hundreds of people writing and making a big issue over how the translations have been translated... but we don't have that. Other than a few who would claim that a few specific words could mean something else, there is no one within the body of believers, or even outside of the body of believers, who are claiming that the translations of the underlying work are bad or mistranslated somehow.
Now, as far as an individual's ability to interpret what they are reading is always going to be an issue, even unto the next thousand centuries. This is even explained in the Scriptures themselves. Jesus railed against the synagogue and temple leaders of his day that they were taking the law of God and making it null by their misunderstanding. He called them blind guides. He spoke of the work that they had done in making a whole group of laws about what was and wasn't legal to do on the Sabbath as akin to their taking the word of God and making it a burden for them to carry. But, and I direct you back to my first opening question, have you read the Scriptures?
As far as your mistake, sure, I knew that. It's why I pointed it out, but surely you can see that even in that small mistake, you show that your understanding of language can be questioned. After all, I'm sure you're a very bright young lady, but you are a young lady. Have you read the Scriptures?
Perhaps if you reread your words over a few times you'll see that.
Why, if I must depend on people to translate some historical work, reject the body of people who cobbled all of those translated works together as a group. They didn't do any of the translating. They just took the available material that was before them and said, "Ok, this is in and this is out." That has no bearing on the translation work.
And I don't necessarily deny their interpretation, unless such interpretation is not based upon the work that they cobbled together and said, "This is the canon of Scripture." Just as I have pointed out with the Jews in Israel, they too, had become satisfied that what the leaders interpreted from the Scriptures was the truth that God was telling them. Jesus was quite clear that there were several issues in which their interpretations were wrong. Do you believe that the nature of man has changed somehow in that regard?
Let me give you an example. There is a body of the believers that teach from their places of leadership and understanding of the Scriptures that when we die, we will go to a place where we will make atonement for our sin. Can you, yes you yourself, open up a copy of the Scriptures and find where that practice or belief is taught within its pages?
Look, you're young and I'm going to assume that you haven't been a knowledgeable believer for more than a couple of years. I would also ask you, and I think it's a relevant question to the issue that we are discussing, if you have actually sat down and read the work that you are attempting to argue about? Or, are you rather merely repeating some ideas that you've heard others make that somehow seems logical and worthwhile to you? Paul's admonition to all of us is to study the Scriptures to show ourselves approved. There is nowhere in the Scriptures where believers are instructed to follow or believe what the body of believers says for us to do in a matter. That's all the church is. The body of believers living upon the earth at any given time. From listening to your words, I get the feeling that you see the church as some hierarchical group where the person at the top knows everything about God. No he doesn't! He may have more depth of understanding on many things, but just like the pharisees and scribes, the leaders are subject to error. What Jesus told you is that God's word is truth. He never said that our religious leaders are truth. In fact, at one point he told the Jews that they must, by law, do what they said, but absolutely not to do what they do. For me, that gives a clear warning that I always need to check what some leader of a group of believers says against what God's word says. The Bereans were noted as more worthy because they did that with Paul's teachings.
Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.
So, when someone who claims to be speaking for God and interpreting for you what God's word says, then you would also be found worthy if you, too, were to examine the Scriptures to see if what they are telling you is true.
Thanks for your replies. How long have you been a believer? I ask, because you seem to be operating under some fairly untrue and non-sensical paradigms. Let me respond to your points, but first, let me ask you, have you read the Scriptures? For you to be able to make a studied and intelligent argument for or against something, then you need to be familiar with what it is that you're arguing for or against. And I don't mean, have you been attending a fellowship of believers where they teach the Scriptures. Have you actually sat yourself down over a course of days and read the Scriptures? All that God has revealed about Himself and the world in which we live and what His Son has also revealed to us concerning the things of God and what it is that God is working to do in this realm of His creating.
You seem to have some understanding that someone can translate a work and not be faithful and true to the underlying texts that they are translating, and no one will know that. If you would take a minute to read the forward of say, the NIV translation of the Scriptures and how they came to be, I think you'd find that this idea that you're operating under that somehow, it's not translated properly is really an argument in nonsense. Is this some idea that you have gleaned from your own understanding, or someone has taught you this understanding?
You know, there are some who say of the many prophetic writings that have been proved to be accurate, that they were writings that were added in later. That they are accurate because someone added them in after the event that they foretell had already happened. Therefore, they are accurate but not really prophecies. But that denies one the basic concepts of human behavior. If a work has been around for several decades and then someone goes in and hundreds of years later adds things in, there is a great uproar about it. It of course, also denies that person's understanding that the Scriptures, as Paul says, came from God and were written as His Holy Spirit directed the writers to write of things.
Similarly, you're trying to make an argument that somehow translators have gotten translations wrong while there are literally millions of people who are familiar with the languages and would cause an uproar had some translator mistranslated a work. I would like you to sit back and put your thinking cap on and consider whether your argument that we can't trust the Scriptures because we can't trust the translator's work could really possibly hold water. If what you claim is true, then we'd likely have hundreds of people writing and making a big issue over how the translations have been translated... but we don't have that. Other than a few who would claim that a few specific words could mean something else, there is no one within the body of believers, or even outside of the body of believers, who are claiming that the translations of the underlying work are bad or mistranslated somehow.
That's another fallacious argument. People, especially the Hebrew people, have always been able to read. What you are proposing is the evolutionary idea that we started with Neanderthal man who just grunted and pointed to express himself and have gradually become smarter. That centuries ago, when the Scriptures were written, that people couldn't read. That is not a true fact. Educating their children was something that Jewish people have been proud and hard working about since the days of Moses, at least. God even commands the Jewish parent to teach their children the knowledge of Him.
Now, as far as an individual's ability to interpret what they are reading is always going to be an issue, even unto the next thousand centuries. This is even explained in the Scriptures themselves. Jesus railed against the synagogue and temple leaders of his day that they were taking the law of God and making it null by their misunderstanding. He called them blind guides. He spoke of the work that they had done in making a whole group of laws about what was and wasn't legal to do on the Sabbath as akin to their taking the word of God and making it a burden for them to carry. But, and I direct you back to my first opening question, have you read the Scriptures?
As far as your mistake, sure, I knew that. It's why I pointed it out, but surely you can see that even in that small mistake, you show that your understanding of language can be questioned. After all, I'm sure you're a very bright young lady, but you are a young lady. Have you read the Scriptures?
Perhaps you don't understand what the canon of Scripture is. And it seems obvious that you don't understand that just because a body of believers did decide what writings would be considered as the Scriptures, doesn't give them the authority to change anything about what the Scriptures teach us about God and His work in this realm of His creating. Yes, a body of believers, did sit down at one time and codify what would be considered the Scriptures. But they didn't write any of it. That was already done. They merely, and I believe it was by the direction of the Holy Spirit, put together the previous writings that had been circulating among the believers for some 300 years as the one's to be considered the true Scriptures to stop others from adding later spurious writings. And yes, I trust that body did well in doing that work, but that doesn't give them the authority to change or deny anything that God's word says about Him and what He expects of His children anymore than the Scribes and Pharisees were able to tell people what it meant and how they were to practice observing the Sabbath. Again, if you still have your thinking cap on, you'll see that this is another bad argument that also doesn't hold water.
Perhaps if you reread your words over a few times you'll see that.
Why, if I must depend on people to translate some historical work, reject the body of people who cobbled all of those translated works together as a group. They didn't do any of the translating. They just took the available material that was before them and said, "Ok, this is in and this is out." That has no bearing on the translation work.
And I don't necessarily deny their interpretation, unless such interpretation is not based upon the work that they cobbled together and said, "This is the canon of Scripture." Just as I have pointed out with the Jews in Israel, they too, had become satisfied that what the leaders interpreted from the Scriptures was the truth that God was telling them. Jesus was quite clear that there were several issues in which their interpretations were wrong. Do you believe that the nature of man has changed somehow in that regard?
Let me give you an example. There is a body of the believers that teach from their places of leadership and understanding of the Scriptures that when we die, we will go to a place where we will make atonement for our sin. Can you, yes you yourself, open up a copy of the Scriptures and find where that practice or belief is taught within its pages?
Look, you're young and I'm going to assume that you haven't been a knowledgeable believer for more than a couple of years. I would also ask you, and I think it's a relevant question to the issue that we are discussing, if you have actually sat down and read the work that you are attempting to argue about? Or, are you rather merely repeating some ideas that you've heard others make that somehow seems logical and worthwhile to you? Paul's admonition to all of us is to study the Scriptures to show ourselves approved. There is nowhere in the Scriptures where believers are instructed to follow or believe what the body of believers says for us to do in a matter. That's all the church is. The body of believers living upon the earth at any given time. From listening to your words, I get the feeling that you see the church as some hierarchical group where the person at the top knows everything about God. No he doesn't! He may have more depth of understanding on many things, but just like the pharisees and scribes, the leaders are subject to error. What Jesus told you is that God's word is truth. He never said that our religious leaders are truth. In fact, at one point he told the Jews that they must, by law, do what they said, but absolutely not to do what they do. For me, that gives a clear warning that I always need to check what some leader of a group of believers says against what God's word says. The Bereans were noted as more worthy because they did that with Paul's teachings.
Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.
So, when someone who claims to be speaking for God and interpreting for you what God's word says, then you would also be found worthy if you, too, were to examine the Scriptures to see if what they are telling you is true.
Consecrated Life
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- Apr 17, 2020
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Yes, as Jesus predates not just the bible, but the creation of the universe as well, this follows as day follows night .
John 17:5
And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.
- Apr 2, 2003
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I gave you verses which imply it, which you didn't address.
Yes, absolutely. However, those were just two examples of what happens when a person, even a whole branch of Christianity, ignores the Bible or makes the Bible secondary. The Bible warns of adding to it.
Whoever initially started such silly talk is wrong and "the Church" is wrong for teaching it as dogma. And, yet again, please be more precise in your language and stop saying things like "predate the Bible." Be specific to avoid confusion.
The foundations of the Trinity are biblical first.
LanaPodesta
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All my life.
Yes.
No. My point was that it was the Church that gave the world the NT, which came from a Hellenised world.
Who has the authority to interpret Scripture?
Nope. Which is my point regarding the doctrine of the Trinity. As I said, the Bible is not a catechism.
There is nowhere in the Bible that says we are to follow the Bible. The Bible didn't exist at the time the books of the Bible were written.
LanaPodesta
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Because I don't disagree that it's implied. I disagree that that it's outlined as doctrine, which it isn't.
But the Church predates the New Testament. Do I have to keep repeating this? Are you truly so ignorant of the history of the early Church?
Who says? The Bible?
Hi LanaPodesta
And now the LORD says— he who formed me in the womb to be his servant to bring Jacob back to him and gather Israel to himself, for I am honored in the eyes of the LORDand my God has been my strength—he says: “It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”
That is what Isaiah wrote about the coming Messiah, the servant of God most high. And so that's exactly what the first apostles were tasked by Jesus to do. To now take the message of God's salvation out into all the world. But the writings that you hold in your hand when you open your bible are the writings of Jews who lived with Jesus or shortly after his ascension. It was not written or come from some Hellenized world. You are wrong about that understanding.
BTW, if you would like to discuss this more privately, feel free to PM me. But that's up to you. You're young and you've come here with some issues concerning understanding and I'm certainly willing to help you out in either forum. I honestly don't even understand why you feel that a church must be 'apostolic' to believe the trinity. What is there that separates non-apostolic and apostolic fellowships that would make a difference in this understanding of the trinitarian concept that the Scriptures teach that there are three seemingly separate persons that offer us the testimony of God and encourage us and teach us as we seek to know Him who created all that exists? I'm just curious where you got that understanding that non-apostolic fellowship should somehow not agree with apostolic fellowships regarding the truths that are revealed in the Scriptures. God bless you
I'm sorry, but no one is a believer all of their life. That just isn't possible. But you're free to believe it if you want to. I'm actually beginning to think that you're not a believer now, based on some of your comments about the things of God. You have maybe been raised in the fellowship of believers and you may have at some point made a confession of the Lord, Jesus as your Savior, but your seeming infatuation with 'when the bible came to be' as the beginning and end of all of your points leads me to think that you haven't really understood what the bible is and what it teaches. You do seem to believe in whatever doctrine your local fellowship may have taught you and I'm just going to caution you that that was what got Israel in trouble, also. They trusted what the leadership of the Jews was teaching them over what God's word was teaching them. Jesus cautioned them about that and I'm cautioning you in the same manner, but you are free to go the way that your heart has established that you should go.
Again, no, the 'church' did not give the world the NT. The body of believers did choose from already existing writings what should be considered as God given Scriptures and that body of writings became what you are referring to as the bible. But those writings were actually written by Jews who had come to understand that Jesus came to open up the love and mercy of God to the whole world, just as the Scriptures declare.
And now the LORD says— he who formed me in the womb to be his servant to bring Jacob back to him and gather Israel to himself, for I am honored in the eyes of the LORDand my God has been my strength—he says: “It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”
That is what Isaiah wrote about the coming Messiah, the servant of God most high. And so that's exactly what the first apostles were tasked by Jesus to do. To now take the message of God's salvation out into all the world. But the writings that you hold in your hand when you open your bible are the writings of Jews who lived with Jesus or shortly after his ascension. It was not written or come from some Hellenized world. You are wrong about that understanding.
Each individual who reads them. You have the authority to interpret Scripture. I have the authority to interpret Scripture. Everyone one on these boards has the authority to interpret Scripture. Now whether or not their interpretation is correct, depends on whether they are depending on God's Spirit living in them to give them understanding of what God is testifying to them. That's my prayer every time I sit down to read for study, the Scriptures. Before I even open the book, I pray that God give me understanding by the power of His Spirit of all that He is telling me. I encourage that practice in you also.
Again, you are misunderstanding the source and purpose of the bible, but I'm not going to continue to harp on that. As Jesus often said to those within his teaching, let he who has ears here.
BTW, if you would like to discuss this more privately, feel free to PM me. But that's up to you. You're young and you've come here with some issues concerning understanding and I'm certainly willing to help you out in either forum. I honestly don't even understand why you feel that a church must be 'apostolic' to believe the trinity. What is there that separates non-apostolic and apostolic fellowships that would make a difference in this understanding of the trinitarian concept that the Scriptures teach that there are three seemingly separate persons that offer us the testimony of God and encourage us and teach us as we seek to know Him who created all that exists? I'm just curious where you got that understanding that non-apostolic fellowship should somehow not agree with apostolic fellowships regarding the truths that are revealed in the Scriptures. God bless you
So, am I to assume that you can't verify the doctrine of some place of purgatory where we make absolution for our sin in the Scriptures?
LanaPodesta
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Pretty sure there's a word for that lol
LanaPodesta
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I don't recognise the doctrine of purgatory
LanaPodesta
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Then it's a moot point if it's just personal interpretation. You can make up anything.
This is why I listen to the spiritual successors of the Apostles.
Tenchi
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So, what it appears you're wanting to do in this thread, LanaPodesta, is deny the authority of Scripture, or, at least, the idea of Sola Scriptura, and put church hierarchy (priests, cardinals, bishops, etc.) on par with God's word. In fact, it seems you want these leaders to have authority over God's word, dictating its meaning to Church laity. Your question about the Trinity is just a means of diving into the question of the supremacy of Scripture over all Church thought and practice. Is this correct?
Haven't you already taken a crack at Sola Scriptura on CF.net? I vaguely recall talking with you about this matter some time ago...
Hi LanaPodesta may I inquire as to what fellowship you are aligned with in your worship?
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Well, as I stated, Jesus appealed to Scripture when dealing with the Jewish authorities and their interpretation of Scripture. Paul writes that not even an apostle can change what had been taught, which would include that which has been written. That makes Scripture the authority.
I should also mention the example of the Jews in Berea:
Act 17:11 Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so. (ESV)
Of course the Church predates the NT, but that has no bearing on the matter.
That is where they are written, is it not? Jesus taught them and the apostles wrote them. Only Scripture is infallible, the Church and men are not.
But, as I can see, I was correct that this is just a trolling thread and as such will be closed.
Hi LanaPodesta
Yes, but why don't you recognize that doctrine? There is a body of the 'church' that teaches that it is the truth of what God has revealed to us. Why don't you recognize, and I'm going to assume that means agree with or believe the doctrine?
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