I agree with this. In fact I think it's one of the better summations of true christianity (the intended lifestyle not the resulting institutions) I've heard. By that definition I don't see how anyone could object to christianity itself, but also by that definition I seriously doubt that the majority of people who call themselves Christian actually are.
Ahhhhhhh nooooooooooo. This is not good! This is the kind of "Christianity" that kept me away for so many years. We don't commit to Christ: God chooses us. It makes a difference why? Because if we tell people that they need to "straighten up, look and act like a Christian" (whatever that means) it is putting ANOTHER burden back upon the person to make them feel guilty: it makes the Church into a special club whose members need to follow a pre-set kind of moralism. No no. This language of commitment and altar calls and "decisionist" theology is dangerous...and unfortunately dominating the face of American Christianity. I pray for the day it won't. One person at a time.
Thomas Jefferson said by the end of his century, everyone would be a Unitarian, man could he be ever more wrong... why is a condition in accepting Christ and living with God's love accepting the doctrines of men [John Darby started it, and Dwight Moody was an evangelist who spread Darby's teachings of dispensational premillennialism in the mid-late 1800's US]
Yes and no. We do have the Synod of Hippo that details the canonized books. We also have what some of the early church fathers wrote about it. Oh yeah, and in case some people missed it, the canon was not discussed at all at Nicea. If you think it was, read the documents from it (yes, they still exist) and you will not see the issue of canon discussed once. Yeah, I hate it when they speculate. I recommend reading Metzger's books on the NT and the formation of the canon. Really good stuff (well documented too). Why couldn't Paul have been talking of the NT. Compelling arguments have been made which date every gospel to pre-70 A.D. Furthermore, why could he have not been referring to his own works as scripture? I am not familiar with any arguments of this nature. Generally, he was speaking about ALL Scripture regardless of the epoch of time in which it was written. Regarding the catholic church comment... catholic means universal. The Great Schism didn't occur until long after the canon had been set down.
I am not talking about a physical commitment of works in front of others... but a heart commitment that is performed only for an audience of ONE. Also, If one does not try to follow the commands of God, do they trully love Jesus? The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips and walk out the door and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable. Jesus said, "These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me." "They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him" (Titus 1:16).
Yes I agree, not everyone that says that they are Christians are actually Christian. Jesus said that His way is narrow and the truth and few find it.
I know that the canonization of the catholic NT, including the apocrapha, was finalised at the synod of hippo, but I've never been able to find anything that gave the specifics about what went on there--just that that's where and when it was decided, not how. As far as the early church fathers, it seems each had their own opinion about what was inspired and what wasn't; (From the Catholic enciclipedia) In the first class, the Homologoumena, stood the Gospels, the thirteen Pauline Epistles, Acts, Apocalypse, I Peter, and I John. The contested writings were Hebrews, II Peter, II and III John, James, Jude, Barnabas, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Didache, and probably the Gospel of the Hebrews. Personally, Origen accepted all of these as Divinely inspired, though viewing contrary opinions with toleration. Origen's authority seems to have given to Hebrews and the disputed Catholic Epistles a firm place in the Alexandrian Canon, their tenure there having been previously insecure, judging from the exegetical work of Clement, and the list in the Codex Claromontanus, which is assigned by competent scholars to an early Alexandrian origin. 2. Eusebius Eusebius, Bishop of Cæsarea in Palestine, was one of Origen's most eminent disciples, a man of wide erudition. In imitation of his master he divided religious literature into three classes: Homologoumena, or compositions universally received as sacred, the Four Gospels, thirteen Epistles of St. Paul, Hebrews, Acts, I Peter, I John, and Apocalypse. There is some inconsistency in his classification; for instance, though ranking Hebrews with the books of universal reception, he elsewhere admits it is disputed. The second category is composed of the Antilegomena, or contested writings; these in turn are of the superior and inferior sort. The better ones are the Epistles of St. James and St. Jude, II Peter, II and III John; these, like Origen, Eusebius wished to be admitted to the Canon, but was forced to record their uncertain status; Eusebius diverged from his Alexandrian master in personally rejecting Apocalypse as an un-Biblical, though compelled to acknowledge its almost universal acceptance. Luician is known to have edited the Scriptures at Antioch, and is supposed to have introduced there the shorter New Testament which later St. John Chrysostom and his followers employed--one in which Apocalypse, II Peter, II and III John, and Jude had no place. It is known that Theodore of Mopsuestia rejected all the Catholic Epistles. In St. John Chrysostom's ample expositions of the Scriptures there is not a single clear trace of the Apocalypse, which he seems to implicitly exclude the four smaller Epistles--II Peter, II and III John, and Jude--from the number of the canonical books.
I'll give it a look but I have to say I stopped taking Metzger seriously when I saw that he's still advocating the 7Q5=gospel of Mark theory Everything I've read (and I've read alot on this) dates Mark-65AD or later, Mathew and Luke--75-85AD, and John--95AD at the earliest. Do you have a link with the evidence you're talking about? Did Paul ever claim that his own epistles were inspired? I was referring to JesusDiedForU's post on the last page. Yes Catholic means universal. My point is that by the time the catholic church canonised the NT it had already turned into a political organisation rather than a religious one (note the assimilation of paganism and the endorsement of an emporor who, by all the evidence, was actaully a follower of Mithras) and it's fair to ascribe political considerrations to the adoption of their canon.
