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 Re:

Dear Murrcolr, then we shall agree to disagree, hopefully while not consigning anyone to the category of heretic. Tozer is widely read across denominational lines because he consistently pointed people towards Jesus. To take a couple of lines from someone and make of it something the author has never taught is, at the very least , bearing false witness.

Again, a text without a context is quite easily turned into a pretext, it is what the " discerment," sites do all the time. I have seen good men torn to shreds on those sites simply because they believe in a supernatural God that still speaks to His people. Brother Yun a couple of years back was similarly treated because he told of how the Spirit of God told each person where and when to show up for a series of secret meetings..............bro Frank

 2014/7/17 9:31
drifter
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 Re:

Anything that has to do with catholic theology is incredibly dangerous. It is what the bible refers to as the "mystery of iniquity". It all stems from Babylonian mystery cults, which is what catholicism is based upon. I recommend that everyone read The Two Babylons by Alexander Hislop.


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Nigel Holland

 2014/7/17 15:39Profile
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 Re:

Quote:

Anything that has to do with catholic theology is incredibly dangerous. It is what the bible refers to as the "mystery of iniquity"



That is an extremely broad statement because the Church was One and was considered "catholic" meaning "universal" in the early church fathers time. Reading the Apostles Creed will verify that. So we cannot categorize the entire Church from its inception to be thus corrupted.

For those who read church history will understand it was not an immediate corruption at any point but a slow process of compromise in many areas including doctrinally.

True saints have been and still are in what we deem today as the Catholic Church. The charismatic catholic movement for instance did not all leave the catholic church. There are wheat and tares in all churches and some more then others.


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SI Moderator - Greg Gordon

 2014/7/17 15:51Profile
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 Re:

krautfrau writes:

Quote:
That we are to experience God subjectively, is scriptural, and not just 'mystical' and the belief that it is not, comes from the side of the church that will not accept any gifts of the Spirit for today's church nor will they accept a secondary experience by whatever name we wish to call it.


Agreed. Some cessationist-oriented ministries do seem to belittle any mention of emotional experiences with God. And that to me is unbiblical because we see in the scriptures many instances where believers had powerful emotional encounters with God. There is definitely the danger of being too cold or rigid in one's faith.

Quote:
If God spoke directly to men under the Old Covenant, why would it be more blessed to have a book in our hands instead under the new? The apostles heard God speaking to them directly and in fact Paul received all of his teaching directly from the Holy Spirit.


When it comes to someone claiming to have heard God's voice audibly or anything similar to that, we must be cautious and test the spirits to see if they are from God. Throughout history it is due to those types of claims that many cults and heretical groups have been born.
Quote:
This type of spirituality, was not invented by evangelicals however, it can be found throughout church history and for a large part, the church WAS the Catholic church unless you wanted to be put to death and there has always been room in it for this type of spirituality to survive.


But haven't God's people also always existed outside the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox systems? Why do we need the writings of those who taught and believed such serious errors as taught within Roman Catholicism? For example, I was reading that St. Augustine believed and taught the following Catholic dogma:

1. The canon of Scripture includes the Septuagint OT canon (deuterocanonicals, Apocrypha)
2. Authoritative Tradition
3. Baptismal regeneration and grace
4. Necessity of baptism for salvation
5. Real presence of Christ in the Eucharist (Lord's Supper)
6. The Mass is a sacrifice
7. Necessity of the Lord's Supper for salvation
8. Purgatory and praying for the departed
9. The communion of saints and saintly intercession
10. Authority of the Catholic Church
11. Apostolic Succession
12. Possibility of falling from grace
13. The sacrament of penance
14. Mary was ever virgin

I don't know about you but I don't want to read anything from those who teach or taught that type of error.

My concern is that the great apostasy is increasing rapidly these days and part of it is seen in the embracing of Roman Catholicism as a valid expression of Christianity.

Quote:
If we throw out the baby with the bathwater all we will be left with is a book even a holy book. We were not to have a relationship with a book but to have a living, moment to moment feeding on Christ for our very life.


The Word of God is not just some holy book to be devalued. God has made sure to protect His Word and to hand it down to us so that we may know Him and be able to worship Him in spirit and in truth. We are sanctified by His Word of truth. We are washed through the Word. We are nourished and built up through the Word. It is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. We must meditate on it day and night. We must esteem it above our daily bread. And there are so many other wonderful benefits that come from treasuring the Word of God in our hearts.

Yes, there is a place for emotional times of being raptured in the presence of God and those are wonderful times and as we seek the Lord they will come naturally so to speak. But those experiences must be consistent with the clear and sure revelation of God's Word.

I think a clear distinction that needs to be made here is between seeking Christ, and seeking after an experience. Huge difference. One is in the Spirit and the other is in the flesh. If we focus on and seek after an experience we are sure to fail in finding true intimacy with Christ. We will find ourselves exerting ourselves in our own will power and it will always fail us. I have learned this principle the hard way and am still learning. May we seek after Christ through His appointed means. For as we do so He will be found by us as He has promised.


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Oracio

 2014/7/17 16:07Profile
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 Re:

Quote:
But haven't God's people also always existed outside the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox systems? Why do we need the writings of those who taught and believed such serious errors taught within Roman Catholicism? For example, I was reading that St. Augustine believed and taught the following Catholic dogma:

1. The canon of Scripture includes the Septuagint OT canon (deuterocanonicals, Apocrypha)
2. Authoritative Tradition
3. Baptismal regeneration and grace
4. Necessity of baptism for salvation
5. Real presence of Christ in the Eucharist (Lord's Supper)
6. The Mass is a sacrifice
7. Necessity of the Lord's Supper for salvation
8. Purgatory and praying for the departed
9. The communion of saints and saintly intercession
10. Authority of the Catholic Church
11. Apostolic Succession
12. Possibility of falling from grace
13. The sacrament of penance
14. Mary was ever virgin




God's people have always existed in and outside of the larger consensis of what is called the main Christian Church. Over the years many great errors were accepted hundreds of years after the apostles into the mainstream church.

Most evangelicals do not know that all the main translations of the bible including KJV had the Apocrypha in it. Martin Luther's translation did. The Apostles quoted from the Apocrypha. And it was considered a valued document for the church greatly by most.

Authoritative Tradition - Evangelical churches that are reformed have many traditions also that are not clearly in scriptures. The Apostles tradition was something in the scriptures therefore there are some things the Church has done over the years which is beneficial for discipline and use. Of course there are good and bad traditions, both in catholic, orthadox and also evangelical.

Baptismal regeneration and grace - Again parts of modern evangelicals find grace to be only mercy and not the ability to do. There needs to be a balance with this. And baptism was not an option or a merely symbol without importance. The Church in all different types valued and treated baptism essential if one is going to follow Christ.

Real presence of Christ in the Eucharist (Lord's Supper) - Again we go to far to say it is just a symbol and has no spiritual help. For Paul said if we eat it unworthily it will harm us so therefore it should beniift us if we reventially take the elements.

The Mass is a sacrifice - this is an extreme newer revelation of the catholic church. Augustin and catholics did not fully think of mass in this way in AD 300.

Necessity of the Lord's Supper for salvation - Again there is balance because many evangelicals take the Lord's supper flippantly like it is not important.

Purgatory and praying for the departed - I am not sure if it is right that augustine started that thinking for it was implimented much later on in the dark ages.

The communion of saints and saintly intercession - There is balance for evangelicals in this area because many do not understand that we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses in the ampitheatre with godly saints and angels alike watching us. It is a sobering thought that we are a part of the true Church of all who have believed and ONE with them who have gone on to be with the Lord.

Authority of the Catholic Church - The true Church has authority whether its a local church that is reformed or not. Submission to leadership is important.

Apostolic Succession - This is something that has been thrown out by most modern evangelicals but it was very important for MOST if not all Christian movements in history including Moravians, Methodists etc. John Wesley had a Orthadox priest ordain him as a bishop to be able to ordain his bishops for the methodist movement to be in the lineage of the Apostles.

Possibility of falling from grace - This is only not believed by some of the reformed segement of believers after Martin Luthers and Calvins teachings.

The sacrament of penance - Purgatory was invented in the middle ages and another wrong element of teaching allowed in the catholic system.

Mary was ever virgin - The balance is we do not honour Mary at all in evangelicalism where we should much more.


I just wanted to write these things to just let you know some balance on things you wrote and how evangelicals ourselves have many imbalanced thinking and everything is not as black and white as we would like to think.


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SI Moderator - Greg Gordon

 2014/7/17 17:44Profile
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 Re:

Thanks brother Greg. I did not personally write out that list but got it from another source. I didn't realize at the moment that some of those points may be non-essentials, like the possibility of falling from grace. But others are serious errors imo.

One point I want to make is that you interpreted those points from the perspective of Protestantism and sought to find common ground. But from a Catholic viewpoint they are understood differently and are serious errors I'd say.


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Oracio

 2014/7/17 18:02Profile
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 Re:

This is the source I got it from, from a Catholic site:

http://www.willcoxson.net/faith/augprot.htm


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Oracio

 2014/7/17 18:05Profile
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 Re:

Greg

I found some of your last post confusing.For example you mention that evangelicals do not honor Mary, how would one go about doing that and where in the BIBLE would we be told to do so?

You mention the authority of the RCC church. The RCC teaches that all authority is given to one man, the pope who they claim infallible. There is a big difference in that and submitting unto church leadership.

The RCC churches teaches its member's to actually pray to dead saints, to ask them to intercede on our behalf. I do believe this is very different then understanding that we are surrounded by a great cloud of witness.

Just trying to understanding what you wrote...

God bless
maryjane

 2014/7/17 18:57Profile









 Re:

Greg,

Respectfully brother I am not on a Catholic bashing campaign. But I found your last post to be troubling.

Are you giving some form of credence to the RCC?

Brother with respect I caution you on reading the church fathers or any man's systematic theology. Our ultimate authority is Christ through His Word.

My thoughts.

Blaine

 2014/7/17 19:46
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 Re:

Quote:
You mention the authority of the RCC church. The RCC teaches that all authority is given to one man, the pope who they claim infallible. There is a big difference in that and submitting unto church leadership.



Sister,

Thank you for your comment. All of my comments on the points were simply to ask for balance in our thinking. Many saints want to accuse Augustine as the father of Catholism but then similarly many quote him as the father of Presdestinatism or Calvinism. Was he the father of both systems of thought?

I believe many of augustine's words are taken of its larger context and also used by certain groups later on in Church History to support their train of thought. Of course Augustine stated some new controversial ideas, thought it is easy to mis-quote older writers that wrote very long replies and used many words to convey a concept or thought.

It is simply impossible to not see the Roman Catholic influence in the reformation and reformation church practice, and of course this is not all bad because the RCC has had many of the early church traditions and kept them added other errors. the RCC which many argue during the dark ages was more formed is not the same as the Catholic One Church in the early church. There was just One Church really that most accepted.

My comments were to show saints that some of the RCC errors grew out of healthy right thinking in the early church, thus as evangelicals we need to understand this and not throw it all under the bus.

Yes the Scriptures are our example and rule yet they speak of the traditions, practices that the early church followed throughout the begin of its history.

I hope that makes it more clear that I am not supporting the errors of the formal RCC as it now is but seeing there has been healthiness in the Catholic church especially more closer in the beginning of the Church the first 300 years, etc.

Just another quite thought that around AD 350 our Bibles were compiled by the One Church and bishops at that point and other councils of the church made very clear statements towards doctrine that we hold to today as evangelical.


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SI Moderator - Greg Gordon

 2014/7/17 20:31Profile





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