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What difference does "and" or "or" make? You don't explain your point. And I've looked at the passage in several different translations, based on different manuscript families and they all use the word "and".
Fine. Use "and". You said the false doctrines
are the myths and genealogies. Paul says it's false doctrine AND myths/genealogies. It's two separate things you incorrectly combined into one.
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I cannot find anywhere that Paul put Timothy in charge of any region or even referred to a region in the context of Timothy's responsibilities.
He is writing to
one man to command an entire region (Ephesus is the city/region he referred to). He commands Timothy repeatedly to put others in their place, including the local elders. You keep accusing me of bringing my presuppositions to the conversation while ignoring your own, which is why you don't see it. That's why I keep encouraging you to re-read it. Who is Paul writing to and what is he telling him/them to do? He is writing
to one man and he is telling
him to command and judge others (including church elders) and how that
one man is to pick out other church leaders under
his charge. If you can't see that when taking an objective reading of just the first two verses, I don't know what to say.. I'm not ignoring what you're saying about Timothy not having similar authority to modern Catholic bishops. I'm trying to show it. What authority does the Church claim that you say Timothy doesn't have?
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Bishops were not overseers of regions but were servant leaders of local churches
Servant leader and overseer of a region aren't mutually exclusive. Jesus is our Lord and Savior, and He served others.
Also multiple bishops isn't abnormal. That is still the case today. My diocese has several. I do like that you bring in Phillipians though because there we see the Clement you roll your eyes at and ignore commended by Paul himself.
Ignatius is describing the role of the bishop in a way you would not agree with, correct? You keep coming back to "that's not what bishop really meant" but I am showing you bishops that disagree with you. What do you think Catholic bishops have/do today that bishops back then didn't? You aren't giving me a positive description to compare or contrast. And Clement is clearly saying the presybeter/episcapoi are installed by the apostles and must be obeyed. Is that how you treat your pastor today? That they have to be obeyed in all matters of teaching, or that you only have to obey what you personally find in the bible?
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Wasn't Ignatius defending his own position as bishop and authority when writing that? If so, as an uninspired man, shouldn't his writings be viewed as biased?
And here is where you step into the dangerous waters. The only reason Christians today believe the letters we read as the NT are inspired is because these earliest, apostolically appointed individuals said they were. How do we know Timothy didn't write Timothy just so he could say he had authority to put the Ephesians in their place? Mighty convenient Paul says he wants to come there and can't, am I right? Maybe Titus did it too (which makes it even more explicit he is in charge in Crete)? Maybe the Romans or the Phillipians or any of the others faked letters because it made their local church look important enough to be addressed by an apostle? Or maybe local leaders wanted to silence dissenters in their congregation so they fake a letter and say :"'see, Paul says you're wrong'? Maybe the apostles said that Jesus put them in charge and gave them the Holy spirit in the gospels because it benefited them? If we're going to question the intentions of early Christians, let's hold everyone to the same standard.
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I found an article that does a thorough job of determining what the Bible and early church, including Ignatius, meant by bishop
Bishop and priest are somewhat interchangeable to this day. Every bishop is a priest, but not every priest is a bishop. And yes, back when communication was much more difficult, there were more bishops because they were needed. I would suggest we'd benefit from more bishops and smaller dioceses today, but that's not my call. But let's throw all that out. Why should I trust the opinion of a 21st century scholar you cited on the role/difference between a bishop and priest over the guys that learned directly from Peter, Paul and John? Why would you? You say that Ignatius' intentions should be viewed as biased, but not protestant scholars trying to disprove Catholicism? Let's not have a double standard.
This is a good place to get back to "sola scriptura". You read bishop in the bible one way. I read it another. I say I see it right there in the bible. Should I not trust myself to interpret those passages for myself?
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No, but that was because the words were spoken by Jesus and written in the Bible
You think they're Jesus' words because the guys like Clement (who did have his letters included in many local canons and was only stopped being used after a decree from a council 200 years later, btw) said this is what the apostles said Jesus said. It's still a game of telephone through uninspired guys, right? Guys whose intentions we should be suspicious of, right?
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The failings of the early church fathers has no impact at all on the credibility and authority of their teachers, the apostles, who were explicitly inspired by God
We can trust that what they claim the apostles wrote and said was actually written and said by the apostles, but we shouldn't trust them on anything else? Why should I trust these uninspired individuals with unknown biases?
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Lots of Catholics want to go back to the Latin mass. Are they in sin by advocating for that and believing that it's superior. How far down the line of doctrine and teachings do you think that the RCC is the final word and there's no room for individual judgment?
If the Church has not officially shut down the Latin Mass, they are free to go. It's not that hard. But if they start using to sow dissension amongst the faithful (like some bishops claim local Latin Mass parishes are doing), they are sinful in other ways, even if the Mass is not. There is no private judgement. The local bishop is making the call.
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They universally appeal to Scripture, to the authority of Scripture. The early church fathers were all adherents to "sola scriptura". Many fathers, like Athanasius and Gregory of Nyssa, explicitly stated that all doctrine must be proven from Scripture. Augustine and others maintained that while bishops and councils could err, the canonical Scriptures alone could not.
This is patently false. I can find appeals to the need to stick with those bishops with apostolic authority in every one of these guys. Especially Augustine. Just the amount of times it is said that people twist scripture for their own gain and that only by sticking with apostolic churches disproves this. Augustine has a whole treatise on how to interpret scripture, given to priests in his charge (De Doctrine Christiana). It doesn't go to the lay man. And he invokes the Church as the reason to believe gospel is even the gospel to begin with (agaisnt the epistle of Manichaeus). It's quite remarkable. Go read them instead of taking people's word for it or searching for prooftexts.
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We're going in circles now and you're just repeating RCC bromides. The question you're ducking and weaving to avoid is what Jesus meant by "his church". I am convinced that it means all believers.
I have told you this on no uncertain terms the exact chapters to go back and read in John. He tells the
apostles and the apostles only that He will send them the Spirit to lead them into all truth, and He prays for them to do their job so that others may come to believe through
the teaching of the apostles. That is His Church that He said He was founding upon Peter. If you aren't going to read what I type and insult me anyway, why should I believe this is a good natured conversation? It seems uncharitable.
Again, I see this in scripture. Are you telling me I shouldn't trust my personal interpretation of these passages? Am I bound to rely on the teaching of another to make sure I get this right?
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No you don't. There are huge gaps in that lineage that the RCC has filled in by fiat. The EO also strongly disagrees with you
.
No there isn't and no they don't. The EO disagree with the extent of Peter's primacy (and the Roman See), but not that it existed. It's an easy google search.
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When Pope Victor I attempted to excommunicate churches in Asia Minor over the date of Easter, figures like Irenaeus rebuked him for overstepping his bounds, and the Eastern churches largely ignored the decree.
Great example of not reading Eusebius's documents. First, Victor did not
attempt to excommunicate. He
warned that the other churches had left communion with the Church. Iranaeus (and others) urgently asked him to reconsider, giving him good reason for the difference and that his predecessors had allowed for it. He did not say he overstepped his bounds and does not say he doesn't have the power to excommunicate. Similar to Paul rebuking Peter for a wrong action. But Paul never says Peter wasn't first among the apostles. Quite the opposite. . Yet again, go read it.
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Many early Christians practiced a "Eucharistic ecclesiology," where the fullness of the Church was found in every local community under its own bishop.
This is still the case today. Not sure why you think it isn't.
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And, perhaps most importantly, in Paul's letter to the Romans, makes no mention of Peter being there or acting as its bishop.
Maybe because Peter wasn't there yet? Lol. That's the accepted timeline. Peter was in Jerusalem, then Antioch before Rome
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You said that the authority of the RCC was necessary to stamp out heresies, and I replied that heresies continue to exist in the RCC just like they do in Protestantism.
Dude. Come on. These heresies have specific definitions. No one is actually holding to these heresies proper and it's dumb to even assert it. No Catholic priest is out there preaching that Jesus wasn't divine or that we don't need God to get to Heaven. The encyclical was written to warn people how their attitudes resemble past errors. Not that they are currently committing those same errors. No where in there does it say these people are literally holding to Ariansism, Gnosticism, Nestorianism or anything else. Again, go read the actual encyclical. And the encyclical can only be written because the errors were recognized and condemned in the past.
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You're trying to explain away the literal words of the passage.
No I'm not. This is just grammar. What you are saying is they were noble in that they read scripture. What it actually says is that they were noble because they were eager to hear Paul's word, and due to this word they eagerly heard, they reviewed scriptures to see if it was true. You're leaving an entire line out of the bible and ignoring the fact the Thessalonicans also reasoned with Paul through scripture, yet it's me that is explaining things away?
Again, I ask you: for the Bereans (and Thessalonicans) that examined the scriptures for themselves and disagreed with Paul: were they correct, and were they still noble anyway? Should they have submitted to his teaching and interpretation?
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However, you make the claim that the church predated the Scriptures and, essentially, that the RCC created the Bible. Although the small "c" church did predate the written Scriptures, the RCC emphatically did not.
Again, Jesus tells the apostles and the apostles alone He is sending them the Spirit to lead into all truth. They have infallible teaching authority prior to the bible being written. There is no way around that. The scriptures are a part of what they authoritatively taught. So no, the Church didn't "create" scripture. The Holy Spirit did. The Holy Spirit is the source of Scriptures
through the apostles. And the Holy Spirit is the source of sacred tradition,
through the apostles. In other words,
through Jesus's Church
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In short, though, the early church fathers quoted from and relied on the Scriptures
I never said they didn't. But since you bring it up, you mean the same church fathers whose motivations we're supposed to be suspicious of and got their definitions of bishop and ecclesiology and the eucharist all wrong? Those are the guys we're supposed to believe could identify these new scriptures? The guys who used scriptures to tell others to agree with their interpretation of the true faith? What if they were just calling certain documents Scriptures for their own purposes...
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From the earliest days, there was never much debate on which books were part of the Scriptures.
Again, untrue. Some Churches used Clement in their canon. Many rejected Revelations. There are others, and they aren't just Gospel of Thomas type books. But even if it's only 10% of the New Testament that was up for debate, if scripture is infallible, even .1% of possible error is too much. Why should we trust those deliberations? This was a man made event, right?
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Your rejection of indulgences is an example of the RCC trying to rewrite history.
Before I discuss this, please provide what you think the definition of an indulgence is. The way you mischaracterized points 1-3 in your next post lead me to believe you don't know what you're talking about. Yet again, go read the actual documents. Hint: the word sale is never, ever used. Not once.
I don't take all my talking points from Catholic historians (again, another insult). I actually read the documents. That's how I know the Church isn't lying. Why don't you try that.
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You seem to have deep animosity towards Protestants.
Not at all. Again, I was one for 10 years, and as I specifically said earlier, I said I believed many of them to be sincere. Go back and read that.
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What information could I provide to you that would help you have less hostility towards us fellow followers of Christ?
I don't have any hostility, so no need for further information. But a nicer tone and dropping constant accusations of me just using Catholic talking points and checking my brain at the door wouldn't hurt.
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Y'all seem more concerned about Protestants than you do about those that are unreached by the gospel, or than about atheists and agnostics. Why is that?
This is incorrect, but if it comes across that way, it's because, as I said before, the split in Christianity has created more flavors than Baskin Robins and leads to confusion amongst those that might otherwise consider a Church that presents a united front and a singular teaching. As it stands now, atheists will continue to point to all the division in doctrine as a proof that Christianity isn't true, and I honestly don't blame them.
