[KILLER QUESTION]

KILLER QUESTION

What difference does it make - in the eternal perspective - as to exactly when the Church started? Considering the Great Commission, and salvation by grace through faith, does Paul starting the Church, or the day of Pentecost starting the Church, or the baptism of the eunuch, or the saving of Cornelius and his household, or anything else make any difference whatsoever in the Gospel?

I don't think so.

As far as God is concerned, souls were saved according to His plan of grace....and that is the ONLY thing that matters.

 Scripturally, it could be argued that the age of grace (unmerited salvation) began when Jesus first uttered the words "your sins are forgiven".

We should all try to keep in mind one thing......eternity......and when the church started isn't going to bring one more soul into the Kingdom....but our arguments over it might keep someone out.

And that is NOT good.

[we live]

Would you agree with "Walking in the Spirit" as being about the same as "Living BY MEANS OF the Spirit?"

Act 17:28 For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.

Col 1:10 That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God;

Gal 5:22   But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
Gal 5:23   Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.
Gal 5:24   And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.
Gal 5:25   If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.

I would say that is a good rendition and semantically correct as long as living and walking are considered synonymous.

THEN out of gratitude come the fruits of the spirit which are joy, love, peace, hope, patience and self control.

Thass right!!

Those fruits are to GIVE BACK what He gave us.

Amen!

They come from genuine love and produce genuine love inside us.

Say it again!!!

They are then not done to show WE'RE holy but out of thankfulness from our hearts.

Thass right!!!!!!

Then there is no selfishness, only genuine good works.

Preach on!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you AW.

Just a final comment.

God says "come, let us REASON together". That means that He wants us to use our faculties, our ability to learn and discern, and to rely on some things that He has established in this world...and among those things are logic.

In logical argumentation, there is a thing called Occam's Razor (or Ockham's). It is an analytical tool that, like the razor it is called, cuts precisely and accurately.

Simply put, Occam's Razor says that if there are two ways, or arguments, both of which arrive at the same conclusion, the the simpler of the two arguments is not only the most precise, but the most well defined, the less ambiguous, and thus the most logical (and true).

We keep hearing and seeing presentations of what constitutes salvation that involve (1) simplicity defined as by faith (belief, pistueo) alone. That is how it is so stated by Paul with "ye are saved by grace thru faith....and not of works....". It is also stated as such by Jesus several times; "he who believeth (pistueo) on me shall NOT die, but have eternal life..."

(2) a combination of belief (pistueo) PLUS a continuing series of actions that constitute a "proof" of that belief, but with a question mark about actual salvation until the moment of death. Salvation is then conditioned upon and dependant upon the successful completion of a number of poorly defined activities (taking up your cross, works meet for repentence, etc.).

Both arguments arrive at a similar conclusion....eternal life (salvation).

Apply Occam's Razor, and see what is left.

Izar:
There is a difference, however slight.

"Pentecostal" is quite often used just to denote the leanings of the particular church as regards methods of worship and belief in the gifts of the Holy Spirit, generally in regards to speaking in tongues.

Some of the Holiness Pentecostal churches consider that speaking in tongues to be the ONLY evidence of salvation, and also eschew TV, radio, makeup, short hair, etc.

The United Pentecostals generally fall into the category of "oneness" Pentecostalism, which declares that salvation is only by baptism ONLY in the Name of Jesus (no Father, Son, or Holy Ghost baptisms) PLUS the speaking in tongues. Many UPC churches are moving away from the tongues requirement, but...... most still like to see (hear) it.

Some Pentecostals (like T. D. Jakes, The Potter's House) are modalist (deny the Trinity).

I think  there's about as many varieties of Pentecostal as there are of Baptists.

[HAVE BEEN GIVEN]

1Jo 5:4   For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, [even] our faith.
1Jo 5:5   Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?

1Jo 5:10   He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son.
1Jo 5:11   And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.
1Jo 5:12   He that hath the Son hath life; [and] he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.
1Jo 5:13   These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.

that ye may know.........eido (perfect, active)
1) to see
a) to perceive with the eyes
b) to perceive by any of the senses
c) to perceive, notice, discern, discover
d) to see

The perfect tense in Greek corresponds to the perfect tense in
English, and describes an action which is viewed as having been
completed in the past, once and for all, not needing to be
repeated.

The active voice represents the subject as the doer or
performer of the action. e.g., in the sentence, "The
boy hit the ball," the boy performs the action.

that ye "have".....echo (present, active, indicative)
1) to have, i.e. to hold
a) to have (hold) in the hand, in the sense of wearing, to have (hold) possession of the mind (refers to alarm, agitating emotions, etc.), to hold fast keep, to have or comprise or involve, to regard or consider or hold as
2) to have i.e. own, possess

The present tense represents a simple statement of fact
or reality viewed as occurring in actual time. In most cases
this corresponds directly with the English present tense.

IF one is born again, then they have overcome the world, and that overcoming (victory) is faith. Who has that faith and thus overcomes? Whosoever believes that Jesus is the Son of God.

The one who believes has a witness IN himself (the Holy Spirit). Whoever does NOT believe on the record given by God of His son is a liar.

What is the record? That we HAVE BEEN GIVEN
 didomai (inceptive aorist, active, indicative)
1) to give
2) to give something to someone
a) of one's own accord to give one something, to his advantage
1) to bestow a gift
b) to grant, give to one asking, let have
c) to supply, furnish, necessary things
d) to give over, deliver

ETERNAL (aionios, from age to age, forever)
LIFE (zoe; life a) of the absolute fulness of life, both essential and ethical, which belongs to God, and through him both to the hypostatic "logos" and to Christ in whom the "logos" put on human nature)

John is emphatically declaring that those who believe (by faith) have been saved (action once completed and does NOT need to be repeated) and given eternal life.

Rom 11:29 For the gifts and calling of God [are] without repentance.

Did The Body Of Christ Begin At Pentecost?
NO WAY!!
It started with Paul, chapter 9 of Acts.

Rofl!!

Act 2:38   Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.
Act 2:39   For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, [even] as many as the Lord our God shall call.
Act 2:40   And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation.
Act 2:41   Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added [unto them] about three thousand souls.

Question...to what ekklesia (church) were these three thousand added?

Act 2:47   Praising God, and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.

What church?

Act 4:4   Howbeit many of them which heard the word believed; and the number of the men was about five thousand.

And another group...

Act 5:11   And great fear came upon all the church, and upon as many as heard these things.

What church?

Act 5:14   And believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women.)

Added to whom?

Act 6:1   And in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplied, there arose a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews, because their widows were neglected in the daily ministration.

Seems this ekklesia had Greeks and Hebrews....were they Jewish? or was this the Church?

Act 8:1   And Saul was consenting unto his death. And at that time there was a great persecution against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judaea and Samaria, except the apostles.

What church was being persecuted by the Jews?

Act 8:3   As for Saul, he made havock of the church, entering into every house, and haling men and women committed [them] to prison.

What church was being made havoc(k) of? Surely a Jew (Saul, aka Paul) wasn't persecuting the Jewish church, now was he?


Get real folks.....the Church of Jesus Christ, His Body, the one true church, began when He sent His Holy Spirit back to this earth to indwell and empower those who would believe on Him for salvation.

Unless, of course, you want to consider those untold thousands of people who believed, and were baptized as not really part of the body...unsaved, cast off, forgotten, etc.  Or did they walk the sawdust trail and change their memberships after Paul got converted?

Which brings up another question. What church did Ananias belong to?

[all filled with the Holy Ghost,]

I believe that all, regardless of "dispensational" leanings, would agree that, according to scripture, an enormous event took place on the day of Pentecost.

Act 2:1   And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.
Act 2:2   And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.
Act 2:3   And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.
Act 2:4   And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.

This event signified two things in particular: (1) the fulfillment of the promise made by Jesus to send another comforter, and (2) the setting of the new covenant standard of the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit to allbelievers.


Then we will notice what Paul later declares:
1Cr 12:13   For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether [we be] Jews or Gentiles, whether [we be] bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.

What man recognizes as having been done by God is not the criteria for determining when God did it.  We can say that Peter did this,  or Paul declared that, or whatever...but  again, the sole determination as to what God has declared is dependent ONLY upon what God did...not on our perception.

On the day of Pentecost, God sent His Holy Spirit to confirm His new covenant with mankind. On that day, the Jews who preached at Jerusalem, and those who believed at Jerusalem, were baptized, by that Spirit, into one body...the Body of Christ, His Church.

I am in complete agreement about the lack of strength and conviction among our "leaders", or at least the ones who are well known.

Keep in mind that when someone does say something, they immediately get "crucified" by the liberal media, the politically correct academics and the wishy washy religious crowd.

Cases in point:
Franklin Graham said that Islam was NOT a religion of peace but of war.....after being excoriated by just about everyone, he did not retract the statement or back down.

Jerry Falwell said that Mohammed was a pedophile. After only one day  of derision, he retracted his statement.

Paul Crouch of TBN said: send me money so I can buy more TV stations.

T. D. Jakes said: God has blessed me with a Rolls Royce, just like He'll bless you when you sow seed into His kingdom.

and so on, ad nauseum.

"for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but will heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears..."

Does anyone hvae any Biblical support for who the 12th Apostle will be on the thrones (assuming it is not Judas)?

As you've already noted, Michael, it would most probably be Mathias, selected by lot to fill the empty slot. It is interesting to note, also, that Mathias (who most people think we never heard from again) spent almost all of his time with.....Paul. He was jailed with him, sent out from Antioch with him, and finally parted company from him over John Mark.

Who was he? Other than being a Levite from Cyprus?

The winner gets a big wink!!

AVBunyan:

Picture this:

 

How true.  

Yes exactly He leads but we must follow.

 

Following is works of love they do not merit us the gift of salvation but they are required to accept it.  If we do not follow or we kick against the goads we risk tossing aside or letting go of the free gift by throwing off the yoke.

 


Have you ever noticed that when two animals are yoked, the lead always gets his way? Eventually? Of course, that depends on whether or not they are actually yoked.

I am sorry I cannot get right back to you on this I began preparing a response to your post last evening but did not finish it.

Thank you. I appreciate your tone, and look forward to some brotherly (and scholarly) jousting.  

Starting today and going through the weekend I am converting 4 servers on my network from Novell to Microsoft (yes I am going over tot he dark side) and will be to busy to finish but I will get back to you hopefully by Monday.

Oh my.....Luke, Luke, where art thou Luke (Skywalker, that is). I like the new Linux Lightsabers.......makes hash out of Darth Gates.

No es problema....whenever is convenient.

Because greek wasn't the normal spoken language of his people in that time and place.  He may well have been capable of speaking in Greek, he may well have made some statements in greek, but I'd want some pretty solid evidence before I'd assume that he had normal conversations with his friends in a foreign language

Quite the contrary. Because of the success of Alexander, Greek became the normal patois for the vast majority of the known world by 150BC, including Palestine. Greek was the everyday language of the Hebrews, whereas Aramaic was a little used dialect of the northeastern peoples if Israel.  Outside of the far reaches of the old Assyrian and Sumerian empires, Aramaic was the foreign language. Note also that when Jesus said (in Aramaic), "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabacthani", the HEBREW speaking witnesses misunderstood Him.....because the use of Aramaic was highly unusual. The evidence is there.

Because:
a.  with the exception of Matthew, the gospels were initially written to audiences outside of Palestaine, for whom greek would be the appropriate
Quote:
written
language.
b.  at least one gospel writer wasn't even a hebrew (Luke).
c.  greek was the normal scholarly written language in the world where most of the NT was written and (more importantly) read, and was the language that the OT was read in, in that world.
Greek is the language you would expect the NT to be written in, given when and where it was written, by whom and for whom. 

Astute observation....except for the part about the OT being read in Greek. The Septuagint was considered "trash" by the Hebrews of Israel....they neither trusted nor appreciated it, since it came from Alexandria, and they continued to rely on their trusty old original Hebrew scrolls.....reading from them in the Hebrew.

Aramaic is the language you would expect Jesus to have spoken in every day life.  Therefore, if you are going to base your whole ecclesiology on the assumption that something was originally said in greek, you ought to have some pretty solid evidence to show that it was, and that evidence isn't there

Aramaic is NOT the language you would expect Jesus to have spoken in every day life.  Again, the evidence indicates that Greek was the normal everyday language of Palestine and the world....Hebrew was secondary, and used primarily in Israel during business transactions that did not involve "gentiles", and in the Temple rites. Latin ran a distant third, and Aramaic was considered a regional dialect of a dead language that very few spoke.

How can the statement "The Church has always seen Jesus Christ as it's head.  They recognize salvation only comes through Christ." be contradictory to Scripture?  Which are you disagreeing with - Scripture or the statement that Christ is the head of the Church?

Why don't you try reading what was posted? Michael posted a slew of scriptures to "prove" that works for salvation are required...which takes it out of the court of "only through Christ". That is the contradiction, and I would thank you to pay closer attention to the arguments before replying, and do not attempt to twist what is said into that which is NOT said.
"It is foolish to answer a question that you do not understand."  G. Polya

Try reading what I said - I never said the RCC view was right or wrong.  I said that to pretend it is naive (as BEP did) is absurd given that many great men who have spent their whole lives studying the bible have supported that view

Joseph Smith spent the vast majority of his life studying the Bible. So did Armstrong, and Koresh, and a multitude of others. Even Ghandi spent more time studying the Bible than he did reading his own works. So what? 10,000 people over 15 centuries that get it wrong still get it wrong....even if they all agree (well, almost agree).

And finally, re the

You might well say "don't let go".  Or wouldn't you?

Nice try. No, I believe that I would do the same thing my Heavenly Father has done for me. Out of genuine love and concern, and recognition that this poor 3 year old doesn't have a fully functioning brain yet, I would tie the balloon SECURELY to him, with an UNBREAKABLE cord, thus GUARANTEEING that even if he should unclasp his little fist, or get tired, or fall asleep, that balloon would FOREVER be with him...SAFELY AND SECURELY ATTACHED.  

So you think Christ made the original statement in Greek? 

Considering that Jesus was believed to have spoken Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic, why would you suppose that He didn't? Considering that in the Gospels there are only a few definite statements that He spoke something in Aramaic, why would one suppose otherwise? Considering that the Gospels themselves, written by Hebrews who also understood Aramaic and Greek, wrote them in Greek, would you suppose that everything was spoken in Aramaic?

No - it's at odds with your flawed understanding of what the RCC says.

Then please, elucidate upon what the RCC says, show me how it is consistent with what Michael said in posting the scriptures followed by an obviously  contradictory statement, then explain what it is I "flawedly understand" about what the RCC says.....especially in light of what I've posted concerning what the RCC says.  Can you show me a quote?

And since we're being obtuse;

Quote from: blackeyedpeas on Today at 03:58:26am
Your claim that the Catholic church is THE CHURCH is so ridiculous and ignorant that I don't know that I could have this discussion in a civil manner.

Whether you agree with the Michael's interpretation or not, its a bit over the top to claim something is "ridiculous and ignorant" when it has been the interpretation accepted by the the vast majority of Christians for the vast majority of 2000 years.  Whether it's right or wrong, its got far more scholarship behind it than everyone here combined (Michael included) could throw a stick at.

Argumentum ad populum......hardly a recommended method of determining that something is true. Last I heard, Christianity (and Christ) was not something determined by popular vote....or democratic concensus.