The Proper Unity of the church

Pyx, this thread will serve for you and I to continue our talk in another thread where we were discussing the RCC.

I will paste in your last reply to me and attempt to respond.

May God bless our seeking for the truth in impartiality.

Originally posted by jaywill
Pyx, this thread will serve for you and I to continue our talk in another thread where we were discussing the RCC.

I will paste in your last reply to me and attempt to respond.

Sounds good to me. We did kind of take the discussion in the other thread off-topic.

May God bless our seeking for the truth in impartiality.

Amen to that! 🙂

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pyx replies:

The word "sect" itself means part. My first response is purely grammatical: the "Catholic" (that's Greek for "universal" Church cannot be a "sect". Another name frequently used for the Church is the "Body of Christ" (this is also from St. Paul's letters). The Church is the whole Body of Christ.
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There is no question that Paul meant that the Body of Christ had a universal aspect which included every and all believers.

The problem is that the RCC tries to include into the Body members which do not possess the life that belongs to the Body. A denture or a false wooden leg is not an organic member of my body. And a man who has not received the life of Christ through regeneration is not an organic member of Christ's Body.

The attempt to include millions of unregenerated human beings into this Public Church is wrong. It is actually a stealthful scheme of the enemy of God to destroy the Christian church.

When persecution did not stop the spread of the church, Satan changed his stradegy to welcome the church into the world. The latter tactic was more destructive than the former. And the Roman Catholic Church stands as the emblem of the Satanic plot to include the world and unbelievers into the Body of Christ.

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Jesus and Paul both thought the Church was (and prayed for the Church to be) one, united, believing the same doctrines.... "that they may all be one, Father, as you and I are one"... "one Lord, one faith, one baptism."
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In the prayer that you have just quoted, the Lord Jesus prayed also:

"I ask concerning them, I do not ask concerning the world, but concerning those whom you have given Me; for they are Yours." (John 17:9)

The prayer you have quoted is for those whom have been given to Christ by the Father. The RCC tries to include in its "church" those who have been given to the Christ AND those who have not, or have not YET been given to Christ.

You left this detail out. "That they may be perfected into one ..." (v.23) is concerning those GIVEN to Christ. It is not a prayer that the unbelievers and the believers be perfected into one. This is what the RCC attempts to perfect.

Jesus said there, in this particular petition, He is NOT praying for those who do not belong to Him. He is praying only for those who have His divine life. They are members of His mystical Body. And it is concerning THEM He prays -

"That they all may be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us; that the world may believe that You have sent Me." (v.21)

Do you understand the difference now?

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And Paul's letters show that heresy and schism were there from the very first; he spends a lot of time correcting errors and defending himself against the attacks of false teachers within the early Church. Sects go way back... but the whole Church came first
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This is going to be a good discussion. But that is all I can write now.
I will take up right here at a latter opportune time.

Originally posted by jaywill

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When persecution did not stop the spread of the church, Satan changed his stradegy to welcome the church into the world. The latter tactic was more destructive then the former and the Roman Catholic Church stands as the emblem of the Satanic plot to include the world and unbelievers into the ...[text shortened]... ===============================[/b]






-

Do you understand the difference now?

. the RCC stand as a emblem of satanic plot. im not of this faith and we anglicans have had our disagreements often blood shed, but that statement is crap. they stand as a world emblem of faith not hidden in the dark [that is where you find satan]. do you not belive christ the lord one one baptism into the christian church, as for faith all churchs practice a devotion.

Originally posted by stoker
. the RCC stand as a emblem of satanic plot. im not of this faith and we anglicans have had our disagreements often blood shed, but that statement is crap. they stand as a world emblem of faith not hidden in the dark [that is where you find satan]. do you not belive christ the lord one one baptism into the christian church, as for faith all churchs practice a devotion.

Stoker,

I have to finish my reply to Pyx before I turn my attention to your charge of "crap". We all are under some limitation of time to write all that needs to be said.

cont.

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pyx replies:

A Christian group whose scope is larger than the Body of Christ? Hmm. That doesn't seem possible, unless you're talking about a group that calls itself "Christian" but isn't really.
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It is not possible. That is the point. The Roman Catholic Church attempts the impossible and ends up with a terrible deformed religious organization which has completely changed the nature of the the kingdom of the heavens.

Here is the parable of Christ predicting this:

"Another parable He set before them, saying, the kingdom of the heavens is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field, [And] which is smaller than all the seeds; but when it has grown, it is greater than the herbs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of heaven come and roost in its branches." (Matt. 13:31,32)

The church of Christ, which is the embodiment of the kingdom, should be like an herb that produces food. But, in history its nature and function were changed through degradation and corruption. The little herb to feed transmuted into a "tree" and a lodging place for the birds.

The birds in the same chapter stand for demonic things seeking to rob man of the truth of the Gospel of the kingdom (13:4,18,19). The birds are the hosts of Satan in a previous parable. Here the birds lodging in the branches of the great "tree" must signify the evil things of the Devil lodging out in the branches of this deformed and changed worldly organization.

The herb transmuting into a tree breaks the law of God's creation. That is that every plant must be after its kind (Gen. 1:11-12). This change from herb to tree must signify the changed among Christ's saints which occured in the first part of the fourth century. And that time Constantine the Great, Emporer of Rome, mixed the church with the world. He brought thousands of false believers into Christianity, making it Christiandom, no longer the church.

The mustard seed is an annual herb, whereas tje tree is a perennial plant. The church, should be a sojourner on the earth. Her true nature is heavenly and spiritual. She is not to be deeply rooted in the world as a huge tree but passing through lightly attached like the mustard herb. With the filling of the congregations with unbelievers the nature of church was deformed. The result was a gigantic religious worldly system deeply rooted and settled in the world.

Within the big "tree" of this deformed entity many evil matters and people flourish. The evils lodge in the branches of this great organization. The mixture of believers with unbelievers has become a deeply entrenched enterprise.

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jaywill said:

There are some unbiblical teachings in the RCC.

pyx replies:

Name one!
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One false and unbiblical teaching is the birth of Jesus on the 25th of December.
Another is the worship of Mary.
Another is the bringing in of many pagan customs to form Easter and Christmas.
Another is the adoption of Holloween as "All Saints Day".

I have already spoken about the forbidding of marriage for those servants of God as a legal requirement. This was predicted by the Spirit expressly as evidence of following teachings of demons.

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Now, granted, not everything that the Catholic Church believes explicitly appears in so many words in the Bible, but that doesn't make it unbiblical. No doctrine of the Church conflicts with the Bible, properly understood.
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Making Peter the first Pope is unbiblical.
Saying Peter is the rock upon which the church is built is unbiblical.
The rock is the revelation of Christ as the Son of God.

The worship of idols and the preoccupation with relics was unbiblical.
But Constantine started the ball rolling to make the Gospel more "palitable" by allowing the unbelievers to bring thier religious practices into the "church".

So Saturnalia becomes the birthday of Jesus.
And the Mother and Child portrait which goes back to Babylon was adopted to be the portrait of the mother of Jesus and Jesus.

And this is why thousands of college students understandably laugh when it is said that the Gospel of Christ is not a copycat religion based on pre-Christian era superstitions. But millions are in a stupor, befuddled that thier Roman Public Church has mixed into the Gospel message tons of leaven from paganism.

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A question back for you: where in the Bible does it say that the Bible is the sole authority for Christian faith? That is a doctrine of the Protestant Reformers, not of Christ. (Fr. Brian Harrison, a convert from Protestantism, wrote an excellent article on this; it's called "Logic and the Foundations of Protestantism." It's available here: http://rtforum.org/lt/lt18.html#II . Don't read it if being a Protestant is more important to you than knowing the truth )
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I am not prepared to deal with this question in this post. But you eventually will find that I am not defending Protestantism as vigorously as you may imagine.

Protestantism withdrew from Roman Catholicism, true. But Protestantism took with it many errors from the RCC and continues some of them until today.

If not now, eventually you will realize that I am only interested in the truth of God's economy. I am not arguing that Protestantism has arrived fully back to that truth.

And one other thing you will realize hopefully. These germs of religious deformation are like something in our blood. You may leave deformed religion. But it will not leave you that easily. So the problems that we Christians wrestle with are like "in our blood". It is not solely a matter of the problem of "those guys over there".

The germs are in us. It is a degradation which is in man's flesh and fallen nature. Leaving the system is not always the germs of the system leaving you. I would like to think that you will receive from my fellowship a reasonable and balanced analysis of some of the problems Christ's Body must overcome.

Originally posted by jaywill
cont.

[b]===================================
pyx replies:

A Christian group whose scope is larger than the Body of Christ? Hmm. That doesn't seem possible, unless you're talking about a group that calls itself "Christian" but isn't really.
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It is not possible. That is the point. The Roman Catholic ...[text shortened]... analysis of some of the problems Christ's Body must overcome.[/b]

Quick questions, no argument coming from me: jaywill, are you of the position that the Bible is completely free of errors or "degradation" or "germs" as you use those words? Would you say that there is an English-language version that is free of errors? If so, which one or ones? What do you think of the substantial differences between versions of the Bible of the RCC and those followed by non-RCC Christians?

This thread has the potential to go in so many different directions that I'm going to have to serialize my replies to your replies. We seem to be creating a mustard-tree here 🙂

But just so you don't think I'm avoiding commenting on the "unbiblical" practices you mentioned, here are my (first, brief, necessarily inadequate) responses, which we can go into in more depth later:

One false and unbiblical teaching is the birth of Jesus on the 25th of December.

Celebrating Jesus' birth on a particular day of the year doesn't amount to a teaching, it seems to me. And how can it be unbiblical, when the Bible says nothing about it one way or the other?

Another is the worship of Mary.

The short answer is: Worship is for God alone. Mary isn't God. Therefore we don't worship Mary, and don't teach the worship of Mary. However, Mary, as God's Mother, does get the greatest degree of honor, not worship, given to any creature. You have these two, honor and worship, confused.

Another is the bringing in of many pagan customs to form Easter and Christmas.

Show me where the Bible says you can't incorporate otherwise-innocuous customs into the worship of the true God. St. Paul on Mars Hill does exactly this when he claims the Greek shrine "to the unknown god" as belonging to Jesus.

Another is the adoption of Holloween as "All Saints Day".

I think you have this one backwards. All Saints' Day came before Hallowe'en (which is just archaic English for "all saints' eve"😉. Unless, of course, you're claiming that the dating of the feast of All Saints is somehow associated with some pagan festival, in which case I'd have to go do some research... but in any case, I'd probably raise the same question I did above with regard to Christmas: where does the Bible condemn this? (And again, it's a practice, not a teaching.)

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The main thing I'd like to discuss first is your interpretation of the parable of the mustard seed. You seem to take Jesus' words in a sense that I think is clearly not what he intended. But that will have to wait for later this evening.... my time is up, temporarily 🙂

Originally posted by pyxelated
This thread has the potential to go in so many different directions that I'm going to have to serialize my replies to your replies. We seem to be creating a mustard-tree here 🙂

But just so you don't think I'm avoiding commenting on the "unbiblical" practices you mentioned, here are my (first, brief, necessarily inadequate) responses, which we can go in ...[text shortened]... have to wait for later this evening.... my time is up, temporarily 🙂

"However, Mary, as God's Mother, does get the greatest degree of honor, not worship, given to any creature."

I have an issue with this statement, Mary was not God's mother; however, she
was Jesus's mother as the Word of God became flesh. Jesus took on human
nature and Mary was His mother when He did this, she was never at anytime
God's mother.
Kelly

Originally posted by JS357
Quick questions, no argument coming from me: jaywill, are you of the position that the Bible is completely free of errors or "degradation" or "germs" as you use those words? Would you say that there is an English-language version that is free of errors? If so, which one or ones? What do you think of the substantial differences between versions of the Bible of the RCC and those followed by non-RCC Christians?

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Quick questions, no argument coming from me: jaywill, are you of the position that the Bible is completely free of errors or "degradation" or "germs" as you use those words? Would you say that there is an English-language version that is free of errors? If so, which one or ones? What do you think of the substantial differences between versions of the Bible of the RCC and those followed by non-RCC Christians?
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As I understand transmition of the New Testament there are thousands of very old copies of the New Testament. Textural critics such as Bruce Metzger and possibly F.F. Bruce catalogue these copies. They document variants in passages.

They can trace where some ancient monk or scribe made a typo or wrote something in the margin. And there are thousands of places within the thousands of copies where these differences can be cataloged by the people who really care about it.

This was a "quick" question so I will give a very brief answer.

About 200,000 errors in the thousands of copies of NT manuscripts. These variant readings exist in about 10,000 places. Westcott and Hort calculated that only about 1/60th of these variants rise above "trivialities" rendering a NT text which is 98.33% pure. Trivialities include such things as mechanical matters such as spelling or style.

Exra Abbot gave similar figures saying of the thousands of copies of whole or portions of the New Testament 95% of the variant readings are "various" as opposed to "rival". And of the remainder of apparent copyist errors so little importance is with them that their adoption or rejection makes no appreciable difference in the sense of the passage.

Philip Schaff held that 150,000 variations known in his day comprised of only 400 that affected the sense of a passage. And of these only 50 were of real significance. And of these fifty none affected "an article of faith or a precept of duty which is not abundantly sustained by other and undoubted passages, or by the whole tenor of Scripture teaching".

A. T. Robertson says the real concern of textural criticism of the New Testament is with a 1000th part of the entire text. This would mean a reconstruction of the New Testament which is 99.9% free from susbstantial or consequential error.

What has been transmitted down to us a thousands of copies of the ancient text is certainly adaquate with next to no consequential variations. It can be trusted.

And it is an ironic fact that the vast number of variants supplies a means of checking on the likely sequence in time of the entrance of variations. The corruption of the text provides the menas for its own correction.

There are plenty of adaquate and good English versions of the Bible. I have always at hand on my desk:

The Recovery Version,
Weymouth's New Testament
1901 American Standard
J.N. Darby's New Translation
NIV Greek / English Interlinear
The Emphasized Bible

If I search the house I can probably come up with some older versions I read early my Christian life -

Revised Standard Version
King James
New American Standard

I have also read J.B. Phillips paraphrase, Good News For Modern Man (paraphrase), The Living Bible (paraphrase)

These are real vanacular friendly paraphrases which are not strict or "wooden" translations. For a "wooden" English translation which has a reputation of sacrificing good sounding English for closeness of the original language, I recommend the 1901 American Standard.

There are many many more English translations than I have experience with. These are some I have experience with. I would not object to having a Catholic translation in my library like New English Bible. But my priorities are not to collect a lot of English versions just to have many Bibles. The few that I have are good enough for me to make comparisons if the need arises.

So much for the quick answer. We do not have just the Bible. We also have the Spirit of God to help us and guide us into the truth. And we have men of God whose experience with God also help us to get into some difficult passages.

The person obediant and loving God strongly is more important as a helper than the unbelieving scholar with Hebrew and Greek in his back pocket.

The Christian who has BOTH is very valuable.

Originally posted by KellyJay
"However, Mary, as God's Mother, does get the greatest degree of honor, not worship, given to any creature."

I have an issue with this statement, Mary was not God's mother; however, she
was Jesus's mother as the Word of God became flesh. Jesus took on human
nature and Mary was His mother when He did this, she was never at anytime
God's mother.
Kelly

If Jesus is God, and Mary is Jesus' mother, then Mary is the Mother of God.

Accept the premises and you must accept the conclusion. Which premise do you deny?

Of course, it is a lot more complicated than that, since Jesus is fully God and fully man, and his two natures are united inseparably in one person, according to the council of Ephesus in AD 431. Questions like this point out the need for an authority capable of deciding them... good thing there is one 🙂

So it becomes simpler: Jesus is fully God and fully man, at the same time, and Mary is His mother. She is, therefore, the Mother of God.

Originally posted by pyxelated
If Jesus is God, and Mary is Jesus' mother, then Mary is the Mother of God.

Accept the premises and you must accept the conclusion. Which premise do you deny?

Of course, it is a lot more complicated than that, since Jesus is fully God and fully man, and his two natures are united inseparably in one person, according to the council of Ephesus in AD 43 ...[text shortened]... and fully man, at the same time, and Mary is His mother. She is, therefore, the Mother of God.

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If Jesus is God, and Mary is Jesus' mother, then Mary is the Mother of God.
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The book of Romans lays out the basic tenets of the Christian faith.
How much space does Paul use on teaching about "the mother of God"?

None.

And the Apostle John has the Lord dismiss her on one occasion saying "Woman, what do I have in this that concerns you? My hour has not yet come." (John 2:4)

Paul acknowledged a certain obscure un-named female disciple, the mother of one Rufus, as also his own spiritual "mother" -

"Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord and his mther as well as mine." (Rom. 16:13)

Since Paul authored some 13 of the 27 books of the New Testament how come we don't see him pouring out adorations of Mary as his mother ?

The RCC has taken Venus or some other female godess, bestowed on her the name of Mary and demanded that adoration of "the mother of God" be heaped upon her.

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Accept the premises and you must accept the conclusion. Which premise do you deny?
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Since Christ is God incarnated as a man, your premise is arguable. Perhaps in some sense right. How much space in the New Testament is devoted to lifting up "the Mother of God" for worship, prayers, intercession, and adoration ?

Nothing is taught about this. What little is said about the woman who was chosen "among" woman (rather than ABOVE) other woman, has been completely blown up out of proportion.

But this is the effect of LEAVEN on fine flour. It bloats up the loaf in fermentation. It enlarges the lump as it leavens the fine flower.

"Another parable He spoke to them: The kingdom of the heavens is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal until the whole was leavened." (Matt. 13:33)

The meaning of this parable is similar to the meaning of the parable of the mustard seed that broke the law of nature and grew to be a huge tree with birds lodging in its branches (13:31,32)

Christ is the unleavened fine flour. And the church is the practical kingdom of the heavens. The church must be a loaf of unleavened bread (1 Cor. 5:7-8). In the Scripture leaven signifies evil things (1 Cor. 5:6,8) and evil doctrines (Matt. 16:6, 11-12).

The Roman Catholic Church, which was fully and officially formed in the sixth century and is signified by the woman in this parable, took many pagan practices, heretical doctrines, and evil matters and mixed them with the teachings concerning Christ, leavening the whole content of Christianity.

This mixture became the corrupted content of the facade of the kingdom of the heavens. And this is why RCC has a totally bloated up monsterous tradition of "the mother of God". It is a tumor, a cancer of paganism mixed in to attract the masses of the world.

Yet "meal" in the parable is for making the meal offering (Lev. 2:1) as a symbol of Christ as food to both God and man. Three measures of meal is the quantity needed to make a full meal (Genesis 18:6) . So the hiding of the leaven in three measures of meal signifies that the Roman Catholic Church has fully leavened in a hidden wat all the teachings concerning Christ the Son of God.

The "Mother of God" is a Satanic ploy to distract people away from Christ the Son of God. And this leavening process is against the Scripture which strongly forbids putting any leaven into the meal offering (Lev. 2:4-5.11)

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Of course, it is a lot more complicated than that, since Jesus is fully God and fully man, and his two natures are united inseparably in one person, according to the council of Ephesus in AD 431.
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This is wonderful teaching. This we can accept. But we should reject the destructive and corrupting LEAVEN of Mary worship. And that even if there seems some grammatical ground to launch a teaching about it.

The Devil is very subtle you know ?

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Questions like this point out the need for an authority capable of deciding them... good thing there is one

So it becomes simpler: Jesus is fully God and fully man, at the same time, and Mary is His mother. She is, therefore, the Mother of God.
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This leaven makes man drunken and befuddled to the truth of the word of God.

Believers involved in idolatry may be saved but they will not participate in the kingdom of God in the millennial kingdom following the second coming of Christ:

"And the works of the flesh are manifest, which aer such things as fornication, uncleaness, lasciviousness, IDOLATRY, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, FACTIONS, DIVISIONS, SECTS envyings, bouts of drunkenness, carousings, and things like these, of which I tell you beforehand, even as I have said before, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God." (Galatians 5:19-21 my emphasis)

Mary worship is idolatry. Idolatry is one of the works of the flesh. If a Christians has a lifestyle of IDOLATRY he is in danger of being excluded from the kingdom of God. He will be disciplined during the 1,000 year millennial kingdom following the second coming of Christ.

Paul warns the Christians beforehand. He has told them this before. Those who habitually practice idolatry without repentance will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Included in things which will exclude the redeemed Christian from the reward of the millennial kingdom also include "factions, divisions, sects". This list of abominable lifestyles is only representative and not exhaustive. Paul says "and things LIKE these" .

When we become aware that we are involved in idolatry we must repent and forsake this sin. So if you are a Christian deceived by the RCC or by any group to worship "the Mother of God" you need to repent before the Lord of something which can cause you not to be able to inherit the kingdom of God.

As we gain spiritual light on the leaven that is in our Christian life and church life, we need to seek God's forgiveness and deliverance.

Paul exhorts the believers to hold fast the Head, Christ. To fail to focus our love on Christ may cause us to be cheated and defrauded of our kingdom prize:

"Let no one defraud you by ... the worshp of angels dwelling on things which he has seen, vainly puffed up by his mind set on the flesh,

And not holding the Head, our from whom all the body, being richly supplied and knit together by means of the joints and sinews, grows with the growth of God." (See Col. 2:18-19)

The prinicple of destraction by fleshy visions is also seen in preoccupation with visions of bleeding statues or apparitions of Mary. These cannot build up the Body of Christ. And they are cheating teachings which defraud the believers, causing them to lose their prize, stumping their spiritual growth. This is not spiritual reality. These are falsehoods based on the mind set on the flesh and vainly puffed up with foolishness and superstition.

So let's get things stirred up a bit. We are talking about the Proper Unity of the Church. I will preface some explanations about this proper unity with some negative statements about what the unity of the church is not.

Churches established according to certain servants of God are deformed "churches". That would include "Lutheran" and "Wesleyan" churches. It is not a matter of whether such servants of God were good or not good. Establishing churches according to workers of God is sectarian.


We should not refer to Reverend So and So's Church. A church does not belong to a gifted Christian worker, no matter how useful that one is. Reverend Jones's church, Reverend William's church and phrases like this should be avoided.

Churches should not be established according to races. There should be no Black Church. There should be no White Church. There should be no Red Church or Yellow Church or Brown Church or Olive Church.

Churches established according to nations are deformed sectarian entities. A Church of England is a division. A German Church is a division. These are not the representative of the God ordained unity of the Body of Christ.

An American Church is a division. A Chinese Church is a division. A Korean Church is a division. An African Church is a division. These kinds of state or national churches are sectarian.

A "Southern Baptist Church" is a division.
A "Pentacostal Church" is a division.
A "Presbyterian" or "Baptist" or "Quaker" or "Methodist" Church is a division. This is not representative of the God ordained unity of the Body of Christ.

A church should not be established on a certain doctrine such as baptism - to lead to a Baptist Church.

A church should not be established on a certain understanding of sanctification as a "Holiness Church".

A church should not be established according to an apostle - "Paul's church" or "Peter's church" or "Apollos's church".

A Dutch Church is sectarian.
A Spanish Church is sectarian.
A French Church is sectarian.
An American Church is sectarian.
A Russian Church is sectarian.
A Greek Orthodox Church is sectarian.
A Roman Public Church is sectarian.

Churches established upon certain organizational structuresm even if biblical are also to be avoided: A Episcopal Church is a division. A Presbyterian Church is a division.

Churches established according to streets in a city may be wrong too.
A First Street Church in one block adjacent to a Second Street Church is division.
A Tenth Street Church or a Poplar Street Church or a Main Street Church are divisions.

These "churches" are all the inventions of man. These kinds of "churches" are divisions and sectarian in nature.

Now there are some more more subtle errors. What about the church in someone's home? The Bible mentions the church in the home of someone. This is used four times in the New Testament. But we have to be careful.

If you have in one city a home church and in the same city ANOTHER home church, that is division.

You may have a city wide church meeting from house to house in 100 homes. But they are not 100 CHURCHES.

The churches that have the proper God ordained unity are churches according to localities or cities:

One of many representative passages proving this is Revelation 1:11:

"I was in spirit on the Lord's Day and heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet, Saying

What you see write in a scrol and send it to the seven churches:
to Ephesus and
to Smyrna and
to Pergamos and
to Thyatira and
to Sardis and
to Philadelphia and
to Laodicea..."

The name of the first church is identical to the name of the locality - Ephesus.
The name of the second church is identical to the name of the locality - Smyrna.
The third church's name is the name of the locality - Pergamos.
So on with the fourth church, the fifth church, the six and seventh church.

The God ordained unity for church establishment is that one city should be matched with one church.

I did not say that one city should be matched with one MEETING PLACE as a physical building. I said in the New Testament God led the apostles to establish a church to match a locality - one city - one church.

This is the minimun requirement to keep Christian unity in the establishing of churches on the earth. The believers in a city should constitute the city wide, locality wide church taking the boundary of that city or locality. This principle is not violated in the New Testament. And Christian would be well to return to this way.

Originally posted by jaywill
[b]=========================
Quick questions, no argument coming from me: jaywill, are you of the position that the Bible is completely free of errors or "degradation" or "germs" as you use those words? Would you say that there is an English-language version that is free of errors? If so, which one or ones? What do you think of the substantial differe ...[text shortened]... d Greek in his back pocket.

The Christian who has BOTH is very valuable.

Thanks!

Originally posted by pyxelated
If Jesus is God, and Mary is Jesus' mother, then Mary is the Mother of God.

Accept the premises and you must accept the conclusion. Which premise do you deny?

Of course, it is a lot more complicated than that, since Jesus is fully God and fully man, and his two natures are united inseparably in one person, according to the council of Ephesus in AD 43 ...[text shortened]... and fully man, at the same time, and Mary is His mother. She is, therefore, the Mother of God.

There is a difference between God and man, Jesus was God before He became
a man. So no Mary was never the mother of God, she was of the Son of Man.
Kelly