How to become a Christian?

[Saint Frankenstein]

The 2 pictures clearly states that Catholics used Mary as an intercession.

Mary is a Saint and all the Saints intercede for us. What is your point?

 

[JM2C]

We can, but we don't have to. What's your problem? What's wrong with asking a friend to pray to for you?

Mt 6:9 After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.

Mt 6:10 Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.

It did not say, “Our Mary which art in heaven”

The Lord Jesus Christ is giving Christians a direct access to God.

Why give yourself a hard time inventing things that do not work.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

I just answered the question of the thread title according to my beliefs. Do you have any idea how many of these "they changed the original teachings!" posts we get? It's a daily thing. It's exhausting, not to mention offensive. Apparently everyone - other Christians, members of other religions, atheists, etc. - agree that it's cool to bash the Catholic Church and, due to their closeness to us in belief and practice, Orthodox Christianity. Sometimes I wonder why a Catholic would even bother to post on a board like this.

According to my beliefs, His plan is to unite humanity under His Son in His Son's Church. The other religions have false teachings that stray from the Truth.

Do you not think that the other churches have exactly the same thought tht the catholics also stray in thir dogma.

This thread is to point out tht all the existing churches have strayed fom the beliefs of the first century beliefs.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Do you not think that the other churches have exactly the same thought tht the catholics also stray in thir dogma.

Yeah, I know the claims of the schismatics and I don't see any substance behind them.

 

[JM2C]

I am a Christian "first". Go take your ignorance elsewhere.

The truest characters of ignorance are vanity, pride, and arrogance. -Samuel Butler

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

The truest characters of ignorance are vanity, pride, and arrogance. -Samuel Butler

Go quote that to yourself.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

Yeah, I know the claims of the schismatics and I don't see any substance behind them.

compare the simple faith as taught in the Didache with that of any church today. Every thing has changed a very great deal, It there for all to see. I am not promoting one church above another.

Even pope Francis is suggesting that not only christians can obtain salvation.

If it comforts you to be a believing Catholic that is what you should be. You will share in the mercy of God with the rest of us.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

I don't care anymore. I'm done with this thread. Bash and repeat ignorance all you want. I'm not going to be put in a position of having to explain myself to multiple people, of being ganged up on. You guys can go pick on someone else.

 

[JM2C]

Mary is a Saint and all the Saints intercede for us. What is your point?

Mt 6:9 After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.

Directly calling on God and then “holy Mary mother of God pray for us”.

Just think of what you are doing here. You are talking to God already when you say “Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.” and while you are talking to God you suddenly switch to Mary to pray for you to God. Does this make any sense to you?

 

[JM2C]

I don't care anymore. I'm done with this thread. Bash and repeat ignorance all you want. I'm not going to be put in a position of having to explain myself to multiple people, of being ganged up on. You guys can go pick on someone else.

Is this how you debate? I’m just explaining my belief to you. I don’t mean to harm or insult you, and if I do, I do apologize.

 

[JM2C]

This thread is to point out tht all the existing churches have strayed fom the beliefs of the first century beliefs.

What do you think was the cause of straying from the right doctrine?

1Co 1:10 Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.

1Co 1:11 For it hath been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are of the house of Chloe, that there are contentions among you.

1Co 1:12 Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ.

1Co 1:13 Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul?

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

What do you think was the cause of straying from the right doctrine?

1Co 1:10 Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.

1Co 1:11 For it hath been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are of the house of Chloe, that there are contentions among you.

1Co 1:12 Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ.

1Co 1:13 Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul?

It was not a question of straying from the right doctrine. There was no doctrine to start with, that they could stray from. All that the new Judo-Christian churches had were a few passed down teachings from Jesus and the words of people who had heard an apostle speak. There was no Christian scripture at all. Corinthians, that you have quoted was not yet written. Though it soon started to have relevance. Only those churches using the Didache for instruction of new members had a unified structure.
The Churches Paul and Barnabas formed and taught took on their own structures, and his letters to them demonstrate the difficulties he was having keeping on the same paths. Paul himself only learned of Jesus teachings second hand, and it is unlikely he ever got to know more than a smattering of them.

By the time the Acts of the Apostles were written, the various churches had already formed doctrines of their own that differed in many ways from each other.

The need for a unified Dogma quickly became apparent, and by the third century those various threads had for the most part been brought together. Though many disagreements still prevailed. Probably the biggest ones were the explanations on the nature of Jesus in the trinity, and the status of Mary as the mother of God. These were never completely accepted by all the ancient church fathers, and these same dogmas divide the Christian faith to this day.

None of these matters had even been considered by the early Judo-Christians, or at least not thought important enough to write down. They worshipped only God.

The rest is history, we have a faith divided by theology on matters for which we can never have a definitive answer.
However it does tend to keep our thoughts focussed on the nature of God. Which would seem to be a good thing.

 

[JM2C]

It was not a question of straying from the right doctrine. There was no doctrine to start with, that they could stray from.

To make a long story short, the book of Acts and Paul’s epistles, or the N.T., were written, for us today, so we could understand the right doctrine. From these right doctrines, we could identify who the real Christians are.

Why there are divisions among Christians today like the one in 1st Corithians?

We go back to the apostles’ teachings, and that is what we are reading today, the N.T.. Otherwise, we are lost. We have to set or base our patterns of belief from the written documents, and that is, the New Testament.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

The first christian communities did not have the combined benifit of those resources. That came much later.
if they were lucky they might have had a short visit from one of the apostle, or more likely one of their helpers..
Even when some of the new scriptures became available it took some three hundred years, before anything like the dogmas we know to day were developed.
Even today it would be extremely difficult for some one to come up with a set of beliefs matching those held by any modern church, just by reading the scriptures.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

…27Then He said to Thomas, "Reach here with your finger, and see My hands; and reach here your hand and put it into My side; and do not be unbelieving, but believing." 28Thomas answered and said to Him, "My Lord and my God!" 29Jesus said to him, "Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed."

This (john20-28) is the only place in the Bible any one said that Jesus was His God.
Even after that no one else seems to have taken up on the idea. The prevailing Concept seems to be that he was the Son of God.
The arguments over the Trinity extended over several hundred years before it became a majority view. Even today it is questioned and debated by scholars and laymen alike.
Arianism never went away. It influences the teachings of many denominations including, all forms of Unitarianism, Jw's. LDS and to some extent all the Primitive protestant churches. as well as the Arian Catholic church(mostly found in the UK).

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

duplicated

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

Modern Arians

Newton studied all the bible available to him and wrote many papers on the nature of Jesus. he became an Arian around 1672. none of his work was published before it was acquired by Keynes in 1936. His writings were suppressed.

Here is Newton's list:-

1.The word God is nowhere in the scriptures used to signify more than one of the three persons at once.


2.The word God put absolutely without restriction to the Son or Holy Ghost doth always signify the Father from one end of the scriptures to the other.


3.Whenever it is said in the scriptures that there is but one God, it is meant the Father.


4.When, after some heretics had taken Christ for a mere man and others for the supreme God, St John in his Gospel endeavoured to state his nature so that men might have from thence a right apprehension of him and avoid those heresies and to that end calls him the word or logos: we must suppose that he intended that term in the sense that it was taken in the world before he used it when in like manner applied to an intelligent being. For if the Apostles had not used words as they found them how could they expect to have been rightly understood. Now the term logos before St John wrote, was generally used in the sense of the Platonists, when applied to an intelligent being and the Arians understood it in the same sense, and therefore theirs is the true sense of St John.


5.The Son in several places confesseth his dependence on the will of the Father.


6.The Son confesseth the Father greater, then calls him his God etc.


7.The Son acknowledgeth the original prescience of all future things to be in the Father only.


8.There is nowhere mention of a human soul in our Saviour besides the word, by the meditation of which the word should be incarnate. But the word itself was made flesh and took upon him the form of a servant.


9.It was the son of God which He sent into the world and not a human soul that suffered for us. If there had been such a human soul in our Saviour, it would have been a thing of too great consequence to have been wholly omitted by the Apostles.


10.It is a proper epithet of the Father to be called almighty. For by God almighty we always understand the Father. Yet this is not to limit the power of the Son. For he doth whatsoever he seeth the Father do; but to acknowledge that all power is originally in the Father and that the Son hath power in him but what he derives fro the Father, for he professes that of himself he can do nothing.


11.The Son in all things submits his will to the will of the Father, which could be unreasonable if he were equal to the Father.


12.The union between him and the Father he interprets to be like that of the saints with one another. That is in agreement of will and counsel.

 

[Desert Snake]

It was not a question of straying from the right doctrine. There was no doctrine to start with, that they could stray from.

Not so. They were monotheistic, yes, but it was worship of Jesus, as God. One Being, different manifestations of Himself. Remember, Paul may have tried to 'right' the mistaken beliefs, i.e. Jesus as man only, or man first, hence why he wrote of Christ worship plainly. As Saul, who knows what he believed or knew of Christian doctrine.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

Not so. They were monotheistic, yes, but it was worship of Jesus, as God. One Being, different manifestations of Himself. Remember, Paul may have tried to 'right' the mistaken beliefs, i.e. Jesus as man only, or man first, hence why he wrote of Christ worship plainly. As Saul, who knows what he believed or knew of Christian doctrine.

It is clear that you have never read th Didache. They never worshipped Jesus but only God. Nor was the concept of the trinity finally established as doctrine until the late fourth century by the established churchs. The churches established in central and northern europe continued to follow the doctrine of Arius for several more hundred of years until they were adsorbed into thr church of Rome.
It was a very close run thing as to who would win the argument. In the end it came down to the decision and power of the emperor, not the church itself.

 

[Desert Snake]

It is clear that you have never read th Didache. They never worshipped Jesus but only God. Nor was the concept of the trinity finally established as doctrine until the late fourth century by the established churchs. The churches established in central and northern europe continued to follow the doctrine of Arius for several more hundred of years until they were adsorbed into thr church of Rome.
It was a very close run thing as to who would win the argument. In the end it came down to the decision and power of the emperor, not the church itself.

But it wasn't a close call when the accepted beliefs were codified. And look what happened, monotheism, Jesus as equal to God through the trinity. If the 'intent' was to make Jesus God, they could have just either declared Jesus as sole Deity, or expressed Oneness Doctrine. They did neither. The intent was not 'over-Deification', it was rationalizing Deification.