Saturday October 28, 2006

From: arlington70-market
Sent: Saturday, November 04, 2006 7:27 AM
Subject: Re: Amazing

Thanks for the response.

1. You have affirmed assertion 1, that of the vast amounts of free time.
2. Building the church does not consist solely in rebuking false teachers. Acts 2:42
3. You say you were sharing the Gospel with me, as an unbeliever, when you wrote back. You did no such thing. Nowhere in your "rebuke" was the truth of the gospel (Romans 10:9,10) expressed. You merely quoted the imperative of fighting false teaching.
Your ignorance of church history is astounding. To write off the Nicene creed and early church fathers as Catholic is moronic. There was no Roman Catholic church. The was merely the Church, Eastern, Western, unified and universal. I doubt you have ever read the Nicene creed to see how insightful and useful it is. As for your comment, "it obliterated nothing", if it weren't for those godly men, deep heresies about the Deity of Christ would have continued to be preached, and many people would have been led astray by true false teaching. So, these men were actually doing what you claim to do, but applying it to real heresy, not just to anyone who didn't agree with them.
As for your dismissal of the church fathers, the non-existence of the Roman church applies there as well. Many of these men wrote in the late first century and early second century, when there was no formal structure and certainly no paternalistic guidance from Rome. You can't just ignore them because they existed before you. By your logic, Peter and Paul were Roman Catholic and should be ignored as well.
As for the canon- your ignorance is apparent there as well. The canon as established at the Council of Nicea is the same 66 books that all Christians agree on today. It was not until the Council of Trent, during the counter-reformation in the 16th century, that the Apocrypha were added to the Roman Catholic Bible. Thus, your railings against the Council are completely misguided.
Be very careful. Your kind of arrogance rings of false teaching in its own right. When compounded by your ignorance, it becomes frightening. You should spend some more time sharpening your mind, not your rhetoric.

My response:

"2. Building the church does not consist solely in rebuking false teachers. Acts 2:42"

Why did you not concede David's point that we do not teach this? Are you too proud to give an inch and repent from your false accusation?

"3. You say you were sharing the Gospel with me, as an unbeliever, when you wrote back. You did no such thing. Nowhere in your "rebuke" was the truth of the gospel (Romans 10:9,10) expressed. You merely quoted the imperative of fighting false teaching."

Where does the Bible teach that the Gospel is only Romans 10:9,10? Please prove with Scripture that what we teach is NOT the Gospel.

"Your ignorance of church history is astounding. To write off the Nicene creed and early church fathers as Catholic is moronic. There was no Roman Catholic church. The was merely the Church, Eastern, Western, unified and universal. I doubt you have ever read the Nicene creed to see how insightful and useful it is."

We write off the early church fathers not because what they call themselves but what they teach. I have yet to see a defense from you for their false teaching. If you are defending them as true teachers than it is incumbent on your to show where we have err in our report.

"As for your comment, "it obliterated nothing", if it weren't for those godly men, deep heresies about the Deity of Christ would have continued to be preached, and many people would have been led astray by true false teaching."

Says you.

If you are referring to the Nicene creed that did not come until 300 years later ("Ante-Nicene" means "before Nicene" and refers to those "Fathers" that lived before the Council of Nicaea [325 AD]). The early church fathers we have exposed came before the Nicene creed. We never argued that everything that these Catholics and early church fathers taught was false. Your logic is faulty.

"As for your dismissal of the church fathers, the non-existence of the Roman church applies there as well. Many of these men wrote in the late first century and early second century, when there was no formal structure and certainly no paternalistic guidance from Rome. You can't just ignore them because they existed before you. By your logic, Peter and Paul were Roman Catholic and should be ignored as well."

Please quote where we have taught that one should ignore the early church fathers because they existed before us. Your logic again shows it self to be just folly. Your are creating a straw man.

"As for the canon- your ignorance is apparent there as well. The canon as established at the Council of Nicea is the same 66 books that all Christians agree on today. It was not until the Council of Trent, during the counter-reformation in the 16th century, that the Apocrypha were added to the Roman Catholic Bible. Thus, your railings against the Council are completely misguided."

Read this:

"Many of the Greek fathers included some apocryphal books in the Septuagint with little distinction made between them and the rest of the Old Testament. Origen, Clement and others cited some apocryphal books as "scripture", "divine scripture", "inspired", and the like." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocrypha)

and

"None of these books is included in the Hebrew canon of Holy Scripture. All of them, however, with the exception of 2 Esdras, are present in copies of the Greek version of the Old Testament known as the Septuagint. The Old Latin translations of the Old Testament, made from the Septuagint, also include them, along with 2 Esdras. As a consequence, many of the early Church Fathers quoted most of these books as authoritative Scripture (see p. vi AP http://www.gnte.org/ecopub/apocrypha.htm)."

Now you show your ignorance of church history. Do a little more research.

"Be very careful. Your kind of arrogance rings of false teaching in its own right. When compounded by your ignorance, it becomes frightening. You should spend some more time sharpening your mind, not your rhetoric."

Right back at you. May God save you from your pride.

In His love,

Al

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Friday October 27, 2006:Time: 7:54pm

Well after so many months I decided to enter in my first entry to my personal blog, on my personal web site.

Few weeks ago our fellowship attended Harvest Crusade in San Jose, California. I have the job to film the entire event and photograph it as well. This time Brian helped me out. I have six hours of film to edit and hopefully will have it up on our site in a 3 months. Still working on the Graham video. That will be up by the end of the year.

Typical response from the attendees. Laurie is right and the Bible is open to personal interpretation. "God does not hate anyone, He is love", response from us, "What does Psalm 5:5 say?" Such simple concepts but because some man told them that God does not hate, does not send anyone to hell, therefore he is right and "our" interpretation of the Bible is wrong. Sad, because there is no interpretation needed in Psalm 5:5. All you need to do is to take it for what it says.