Roymond

Not really. From that article: Reading through that and seeing all the standard phrases it's obvious that what Rome considers ecumenism is for everyone else to adopt Roman Catholic doctrine including the supremacy and infallibility of the pope, including the vow of obedience to the pope. If you know the 'language' it's written in, they're saying that only people ordained by bishops chosen by the pope are actually pastors or ministers (and for unity they all have to be re-educated and re-ordained incouding the oath of obedience to the pope), that the only thing to be discussed is how other churches are going to adopt Roman Catholic doctrine completely, that unity is made by everyone accepting that the Roman Catholic Church is the only actual church and the rest are just imitations . . . . This is telling: By "the truths of the faith" Roman Catholics mean every doctrinal decision of every council they've ever held. That means they have no intention of changing to meet other Christians even 1% of the way because by their definition of "Catholic Church" that church is always right. It's actually amusing that they mention Luther and Calvin with a tone one might use with a sixth-grader who has done well on a small quiz; they go right back to asserting that the only real church is the one made up of bishops who are totally obedient to the pope, equating the church Jesus founded with the visible institution centered in Rome. They even bring up "infused grace", a total misunderstanding of scripture that they're stuck with because they set Aristotle up as the master over all theology and scripture itself. There's no aim for common ground, no room for compromise, no possibility of admitting Rome has gone astray in that document. It's little more than a pep talk for enthusiastic Roman Catholics to convince all their friends and neighbors to become Roman Catholic through the mechanism of every congregation one by one deciding to submit to the pope.

That reminds me of a Lutheran congregation when I was in grad school. They'd had a budget crisis and to the amazement of probably every other pastor and congregation in town, selling the building was one of the options listed! It didn't happen because the realtors they talked to said there wasn't a market for a building like theirs built of stone with arched windows, a high arched ceiling, interior pillars, and all the rest one might expect of a church building constructed in the 1940s. But what did happen was interesting: * the pastor and assistant pastor took salary cuts * classrooms got remodeled and leased to some community organizations for evening events * the heat in the sanctuary was turned down three degrees and the air conditioning was raised two degrees * most of the parking lot was turned into rental spaces six days a week, at about two-thirds of the going rate * Bible studies and other groups shifted to meeting in homes Those are the ones I remember. Basically they cut their expenses while making a bunch of things more neighborhood-oriented and altered much of their facility to something the neighborhood could use (the parking lot idea wasn't really for money, it was prompted by a report on public parking in the city). A reporter heard about the meeting where selling the building was voted on, and he wrote an article for the area newspaper. As changes started being made, he reported on those as well. The congregation got known for being the church willing to sell their building. People using the facilities often interacted with the church staff. And as word got around, they got more Sunday visitors, and some of those visitors became members, and offerings increased to the point that within a year of deciding not to sell they restored the pastors' salaries -- and turned the heat up one degree on Sundays.

Most of what you list should be done by deacons. I encountered a Presbyterian church where the elders got tired of members bringing every little petty thing to them so they brushed off an old manual from somewhere and followed its guidance to set up a system of deacons while they focused more on spiritual ministry, several of them even becoming pretty good preachers. It stood them in good stead when their pastor fell ill and was out of commission for three or four months. A really awesome aspect of that was that when he was back to health he asked, "What got deferred because you needed me for it?" and the answer was, "Well... nothing, actually" -- and he thought that was wonderful.

You would love a church I encountered once basically by accident. They had lost their pastor and were trying to get a new one, but months went by with no responses. When it was approaching half a year, things were falling apart, so the elders met and made a decision: they divided up all the duties for everything that kept the church going, and part of the agreement was that if an elder thought someone else could do one of the duties they'd taken on they could approach that person, and if the person agreed to take on whatever it was, then they were consecrated a deacon (this was a church that doesn't ordinarily have deacons) in charge of whatever. To set the example, they started with the church janitor, installing him as deacon in charge of the physical building in a ceremony not much different from an ordination -- and with the authority to recruit sub-deacons. Soon there was a deacon treasurer, a deacon usher, a deacon in charge of making sure the church building was opened and then secured when it was supposed to be, a deacon lector in charge of making sure that someone was signed up to read the scripture lessons for the day, a deacon for taking care of the grounds outside the church, a deaconess in charge of Sunday School, a deaconess in charge of the kitchen, a deacon in charge of youth... and a sub-deacon for plumbing, one for lighting, one for keeping the sanctuary clean, and so on. By the time it has been a year with no pastor the elders agreed they had pulled things back together. Then there was a roof leak, and the janitor didn't really know about roofing, but there was a part-time contractor in the congregation, so he got installed as sub-deacon for roofing. Someone noted that the carpet in the narthex (foyer) was getting pretty dirty; she got appointed sub-deaconness in charge of carpets (the reasoning being that since she plainly paid attention to such things she was a good candidate to manage it). By the time a year and a half with no pastor rolled around, there were nine elders, twelve deacons, over twenty sub-deacons. IT had been getting harder to find guest preachers, so the elders sifted through the membership for good public speakers -- not to be preachers themselves but to help the elders learn! A bit after two years they finally got a new pastor candidate, and he came several Sundays to preach and so people could get to know him. He noticed when he came just to look around that the church office secretary had a name plaque that said "Deaconess <name>" on it and the janitor's room said "Deacon <name>". Then he was introduced to the treasurer, "Deacon <name>" -- and so it went, with seemingly every other person he was introduced to being "elder", deacon", deaconess", "sub-deacon" etc. He just kept taking note of this until about his third visit he asked about the organization system. Wanting to be thorough and having expected the question, the elders had an organizational chart with nearly fifty boxes in it with the name and the task. When they'd gone over it all, he looked around the table and asked, "What is there for me to do?" because everything was covered including missions and evangelism and a food bank and more. He'd been expecting a typical parish where the pastor was just about everything but the treasurer. The head elder had their answer ready: "Luther said the task of the ordained ministry is the Word and Sacraments. That's what you do -- we've got everything else covered." I had a chance to talk with that pastor about a year after he'd accepted the call to serve there, and he was still in awe of what had transpired: he didn't have to sit through the women's group, or shepherd the teenagers, or write a budget, or order materials, he just did what the Apostles had done, devoting himself to Word and Sacrament, and if there was anything he needed, there was an elder or deacon or sub-deacon and he didn't even know who was in charge of what -- the deaconess church secretary knew all that. The amazing thing is that no one told those elders that they should recruit and consecrate deacons, they just knew something had to be done and deacons were what the Apostles turned to back in the beginning, and they didn't have to work hard to recruit because once the first three or so deacons had been officially installed during Sunday worship it seemed every time they identified a new need someone was ready for that position. I've seen it done at some other churches but top-down, the pastor holding to the view that his job was Word and Sacrament, and insisting that for whatever needs there were it was up to the elders to find someone to take on the task, but having it happen spontaneously still seems a marvel.

Satan couldn't control Adam, if for no other reason then this: Adam's sin was like Satan's in that both were acts of rebellion -- and a rebel against a good master isn't going to suddenly not be a rebel for a lesser, deceitful master. That's why Satan's kingdom is set against itself: all it produces is rebels, and they aren't interested in obeying a new king! So he can deceive, manipulate, lie, tempt, corrupt, deceive, confuse, harass, and did I mention deceive? And Satan is frustrated because what really "controls" us is a desire and longing for all the good things God intended -- he can only take satisfaction in the fact that we invariably do it wrong and end up somewhere else.

Even Jesus suffered the first death -- it just didn't quite "work"; as a college friend of my sister liked to say, "Jesus caught death, but He got better". And my response, "Jesus caught Death, and He ain't lettin' go!"

Not really, because DEATH is not a threat to God. It's the same as with Satan: Satan may have opposed God but he was not God's enemy, he was Michael's enemy (and not much of an enemy at that given what Michael's name means). Death is OUR enemy, and that's been taken care of.

All the dead go to the same place: Sheol, the land of the dead. Remember that death reigned from Adam to Moses, but then the Law came and sin ruled. If someone was "PERFECT under the law", then the Law is set to the side -- and death reigns. As for those who didn't know there was a law, they're still under the reign of Death; Death's reign is only put aside by Law. So the one goes down to Sheol because he was not perfect; the next goes down to Sheol because the Law cannot (as Paul says) bring life; and the last goes down to Sheol because where there is no Law Death reigns.

Stop right there: Paul was an Apostle. He presents his credentials in his letter to the Galatians: (emphasis mine) Paul's teacher was Jesus Himself. We don't "have to be kind" at all: Paul knew what he was talking about because he learned from Jesus. And when he says "the Gospel", he means not just the core message but all its ramifications.

I am just trying to understand what is taught in the churches today as to How did death reign BEFORE MOSES and How did it NOT REIGN afterwards? and what did that mean to the person that was 'perfect under the law' vs 'NOT'? Let's look at what came before: That's always important, but it's moreso here since Paul starts off the next section with Διὰ τοῦτο, (dee-AH toh-OU-toh), "on account of which", and since there's no occurence of a causal link (most commonly ὅτι [HO-tee]) it refers to what was just said. So somehow there appears to be a link between Christ dying for us by shedding His blood so we are reconciled, etc., and death reigning. In this case the natural statement following Διὰ τοῦτο is actually up ahead in the middle of verse 15: reconciliation --> life for many. So v12 through v14 are a bit of a parenthetical statement Paul puts in to set up for v15a where he makes the contrast between the trespass and the reconciliation. That's kind of handy because it means that v12- v14 can be handled as a stand-alone unit not affected by either what went before or what comes after. I'm going to start by going out on a limb with verse 12: "Because" here is Greek ἐφ’ ᾧ (eff hOe), literally "upon which" but due to the case used is better rendered "because of which". This turns the usual translation on its head; the usual indicates that sin precedes death, but taking this strictly according to the case used the verse is actually saying that since death spread to all men then all sinned -- a causal relationship that tosses all Augustine's arguments about original sin into the ditch because this actually says that what we inherited from Adam is death, and because we are "born dead" then we sin. Now verse 13: This is a bit of a parenthetical statement itself but it's an important one anyway because it states a relationship between sin and law: sin is here regardless, but it isn't counted when there is no law. And that leads us to the actual question about verse 14: The progression here is that sin isn't counted where there is no law, yet/however death reigned anyway. The point is that even though sin isn't counted, that doesn't let anyone skip out of death; death begets death and so death "reigns", i.e. has the power directly. So what happened at the time of Moses that changes this? Simply that the Law was given, and so death is moved back a notch; because of the it is now Sin that is reigning. Think of it as Death being King from Adam to Moses, but then a new King is enthroned, which is Sin. Death doesn't get thrown out, just sort of demoted to Prince instead of King. So to the questions that were asked: 1a. How did death reign BEFORE MOSES and - - Death reigned before Moses because death begets death regardless of whether there is Law 1b. How did it NOT REIGN afterwards? - - When Law came, Sin ruled and death got 'demoted' -- it's still in effect, but not directly, now it's the tool of sin through the Law. (This is reaching a little into the next chapter) 2. and what did that mean to the person that was 'perfect under the law' vs 'NOT'? I think Paul would say that no one is perfect under the law, that it isn't actually possible. He says this in both Romans and Galatians, saying that the Law could never make anyone holy -- it cannot commend, it can only condemn, and this is so because the Law can only be kept by those who are wholly holy but humans aren't holy at all. The Law showed what people were supposed to be in the kingdom of Israel but it provided no means to get there. Yet even if someone had kept it completely, the Law does not cover everything! That was part of Jesus' point with the "You have heard it said... but I say to you" discourse: the Law only applies to outward obedience, it cannot reach the heart or -- as James would affirm later -- the tongue. And beyond that there is still Death in the background, perhaps 'only' a Prince but still one that lets no mortal flesh pass -- so there would be no difference; both the Law-keeper and the Law-failer remain under death, equally.

How many times have you written this same thing? It takes a bit to get me irritated, but you've told about this almost as many times as there are pages in this thread -- don't you think people have the message by now? That you keep repeating it suggests strongly that you have an agenda, which can easily be concluded to be "Tattoos are awesome!" if not "Go get one!"

Not necessarily: consider that some early Christians went to purchase slaves for the purpose of setting them free. Being purchased says more about what you were than what you are. In our case we are heirs who have been in bondage, and we were bought out of bondage into freedom. It makes me think of when a Roman asked Paul how he became a citizen and then told Paul how he did: Paul was born to it, the Roman had paid a great price. We were born into a kingdom of bondage -- and we have been bought with a great price to make us citizens of a new Kingdom!

Contrary to the Word? Plainly that's not so certain as you declare it to be. It may not in your view be edifying, but to be contrary to the Word is a different thing -- and it starts with these: At least those are what the Holy Spirit told us. Anything we take captive for Christ can be edifying. Though this makes me think: I don't recall having noticed anyone point out this with regard to tattoos:

This gave me a chuckle since just today I finished reading a history of how Christianity came to dominate the Roman Empire and one major part was that it provided a counter-culture.\ How things change!

That depends on whether you think you'll ever be in a position to be telling people with tattoos about Jesus.

That's a very Puritan attitude that doesn't fit with the Gospel, so this piece isn't off to a good start. Also a very Puritan attitude and also doesn't fit well with the Gospel. Here's an example: I met a Lutheran pastor who went to a casino two or three times a month. He played blackjack and almost always came out ahead, but that wasn't why he was there: he was watching for people in need. Sometimes it was someone who suddenly realized she'd gambled away all her money and didn't even have a motel room and burst into tears; casino people would steer such a person out of the way and he would intercept. Sometimes it was a look of desperation of someone who knew they were in too deep but kept hoping their luck would reverse. Sometimes it was someone mindlessly putting token after token into a slot machine. He never knew what he was going to see, but he rarely spent a late evening there without discovering someone who needed a turn-around and were ready to hear that. A couple of the elders at his church started doing the same, though by then the pastor didn't need to watch very hard; security would recognize someone they would normally ease out of the building but instead come and say quietly, "We've got one for you" and he would wrap up his game and go. I don't know how many members his church had that were there because he'd been there when they needed a rescue but my bet is it was a lot. And it wasn't just rescue-ees; a few dealers had been impressed by his quiet patience and gentle assistance and came to see what kind of church this pastor ran, and they stuck; a couple of security guys had recognized what he was doing and come to him in his office to spill their own problems, and they got saved and stuck there. Word spread on the street, too, first that here was a pastor who deserved the title, later that here was a church that cared enough to come into the places where people all too often hit bottom, and so people who were hitting bottom somewhere other than a casino recognized there would be a welcome for them, too. And more than a few people from out of town who'd been helped by his "rescues" kept in touch, often with steady contributions to the ministry. Jesus went where people were hurting and He didn't care what it looked like; those who needed what He brought got word and understood. So no, going to a casino isn't always wrong -- but forbidding it is. That's no longer really true. I've seen names such as "Living Art" (which was a pun since it was run by a guy named "Art", but also a message because he refused to do anything dark or sinister, "In Living Color" (which had a unique thing going in that they asked each customer to visualize their oldest relative and then imagine their tattoo on their own old body), "Body Gems" (they specialized in tattoos featuring gemstones, including what looked really painful to me: tattoos on the earlobes to complement whatever a person was wearing there), "Casey's Colors" (Casey only did bright 'happy' tattoos), "Adorn", "Paramount", "Rosewater" (run by Rose), "Gold Sparrow", and -- okay, this one is weird -- "ThoughtCrime Tattoo". Some are in former barber shops and have art samples on the walls like barbers would have haircut pictures, some are in malls; none of the ones I mentioned are dark dusky or seedy. That's a good question. By themselves? No -- in fact very few tattoos communicate much at all as far as I can see (except in a lot of cases "I was so in a hurry to get a tattoo that I actually paid for this trash"). Tattoos can attract, but that means getting something unique and not more than one or two; it's once someone is interested that godliness can come into play, and that's a matter of the person wearing the tattoo. Crosses are too popular to be a useful tattoo if you're aiming to use it form a witness starter. What it says about you as a Christian depends on how much thought you put into the design. If it's out of a book of standard designs, I'd say it says you're lazy about not just choosing a tattoo but about witnessing. If it's something you found in an art exhibit or museum that practically jumped out at you, well, see above though it's a notch up from that. If it's something so special and unique and isn't obviously about Jesus but can serve to get a conversation to Him, that says something positive. I'd say you have -- hope I've added some.

"Fruit" -- not "fruits". Part of the fruit of the Spirit -- it's all one.

On a university campus where there are fraternities and sororities a tattoo of a short Greek word could work -- maybe χάρις (grace) I can't think of a shorter word that would work. Though if I were to get a Greek word tattoo, it would be: τετέλεσται

That's the major reason I've thought of getting one; I can't think of any other reason to spend so much money on just some art. The other one I've thought of had to do with personal safety, but that's a rather personal story.

My thought is that Bible verses probably aren't the best thing if they're identified as such because so many people these days will hear "Bible" and close their ears. I like a shirt some of us made in university: "God@Heaven.com" with a hand depicted as though it had just finished typing that. I got asked about it so many times.... One that sticks in my mind was when I was headed up a river to a swimming hole and stopped at a little store to buy pop, ice, snacks, and beer. I bumped into a guy who stopped, read the shirt, looked at the beer, and asked if I was a Christian, and if so how was it I was buying beer? I told him yes, and I was buying beer to drink and perhaps to share. Turned out he'd been hounded by a church over drinking beer and had rejected Christianity and was curious how a Christian could drink beer. I told him that generally it was done by opening the can and tipping it into the mouth. That brought a laugh, and then he was peppering me with questions, and when we parted he said he was going to find a church where he could drink beer because I'd changed his image of God from someone with a set of rules and a notepad writing down every little infraction to someone who wants the best for His children and sent His Son to "repair" humanity. Because of that shirt I ended up talking to all sorts of people who would have scoffed and gone on their way if it had had a Bible verse and reference. As far as tattoos, I got into conversations because I didn't have any! I got asked why, and said I hadn't found the design I wanted yet. Of course they wanted to know what design I wanted, and I said a phoenix bird on each side, the left-hand a burning phoenix going down and on the right a triumphant phoenix rising up, and that led to the question why that design, which was a chance to tell how early Christians used the phoenix as an illustration of Christ. [Unfortunately I was never able to afford even the black & white outline work, so I still tell about the tattoos I'd like to have.] I also got questions about the necklace emblem I wore, which was usually an anchor with a hint of a cross at the top end -- pretty much this without the sharp points-- https://i.pinimg.com/736x/b7/34/52/b734527548a93bf4a541c786effc4a8c--nautical-necklace-anchor-necklace.jpghttps://i.pinimg.com/736x/b7/34/52/b734527548a93bf4a541c786effc4a8c--nautical-necklace-anchor-necklace.jpg [I hope the link will take people to the picture; I kept getting told the URL is not allowed even though I got the image from five different sources before giving up.] Mostly I got asked if it meant I was a sailor, and I said "No, but I have a picture of me walking on water" (which was sort of true; in grad school we had a rainstorm in early spring when the lake was still frozen solid, enough rain to make little obvious waves and hide the ice, and my roommate sent me out to walk across the lake while he took pictures). I'd tell the story and get a laugh, then tell the real reason that I wore it, that my life got jerked this way and that and I screwed things up and made stupid decisions, and I needed an anchor in my life -- and this wasn't it, it just stood for my actual anchor, which was Jesus -- and since I;d basically just confessed what a mess I was and needed a Savior, almost always they were willing to listen because they recognized their own need. So for a tattoo, I'd say something that stands for Christ like an anchor or a boat (church as ship) or a lamb or a lion -- something that can stand for Jesus but isn't obvious and might draw questions -- and have a story about why you have that particular bit of art that ends up talking about Jesus.

You are aware that everything after "salvation" is something held only by a minority of Christians, right?

It can be -- it isn't necessarily. And humans being human, if we didn't already have it it would get invented.

The "clergy/laity system" started with Paul appointing elders and making Timothy a bishop to appoint more elders. Elder in Greek is "presbys", and as people in the West spoke less and less Greek that got mispronounced; that's the nominative form and the rest have a "t" in them, e.g. "presbyteros", and if you start dropping syllables but keep consonants it rather quickly becomes "presbteros" which is hard to say so it became "presterous" and later in the Latin-based languages became "prebst" while in Germanic-based it tended to become "prester" or "prister" but then after the Norman conquest the Norman version and Saxon version converged to "priest". So in linguistic terms the church has always had priests, it's just that the institution has changed over the centuries. "Bishop" was originally another word for presbyter, but as churches grew they needed a chief presbyter both as head elder and to organize the churches in one city (I recall an estimate that in the year 200 there were thirty different churches in Rome, with maybe one hundred and some members each, and being humans they had squabbles so a head supervisor was needed). Since "bishop" -- episkopos -- meant both "supervisor" and "shepherd", that title was shifted to mean the one whose job was to keep things going smoothly between the local churches, though it also drew on the fact that Jesus was referred to as the episkopos of our souls.

That's not a "New Priesthood"; Peter is quoting the Old Testament -- Israel was just as much a royal priesthood. Priests put Jesus to death? Not really, Roman soldiers did that, the priests just schemed to make it happen. Though you're correct; that ended the point of the Aaronic priesthood... though not totally and not immediately; that priesthood continued to function at putting aside sins and portraying Jesus for another forty years.

Church authority has nothing to do with it: it has to do with X knowing what XX has said especially when X keeps meticulous records. That doesn't describe Rome very well -- it's pretty picky about what "all things" it embraces.