If the Roman Catholic Church is so bad...

Still, while the Holy Spirit guides the Church, it is possible for leaders not to follow Him. We see all throughout the NT warnings about leaders going astray:
Matthew 7:15, 24:5-24, Acts 20:28, 2 Cor.11:3, 4,
12-15, Phil.1:15,16, 2 Thess.2:1-12, 2 Tim.3:1-7,
4:1-4, 2 Peter 2:1-3, 3:3-15, 16, Jude 4-19, 1 John 2:18, 19, 4:1-3, 3 John 9, 10 (notice: leaders begin to love "prominence" and expel true followers of Christ from the Church!)

Since the church was never about a secular organization (govt. or modern day tax exempt "corporation"), the visible organization was allowed to fall away. The Holy Spirit would live in individuals, as salvation was based on an individual relationship with God; and as the written word was published, that would be all that was needed for a person to receive the truth.
[PS. This was the wife of mob boss John Gotti].

The "whole counsel of the Church" is the people it is made up of as a whole; the body. The leaders were to just be "shepherds"; not the identity of the Church itself.

That puts the cart before the horse. If their "oral Mosaic traditions" were right, then Christ was false to begin with, his claims to deity are blasphemous, and his denunciation of the Temple Hierarchy was rejection of God itself(and all His works thus from the devil, as they said); and it wouldn't matter what He rejected or established. That's why this appeal to "tradition" is dangerous. You take scriptures only enough to establish the "tradition", but then when the tradition is found not to match up to them, you basically override the scriptures!

Authority was passed down from apostle to apostle (with laying on of hands and all), but this is not some sort of "magisterium" or whatever. We all are to "hold fast" and "preserve" the truth, not just professional leaders.
The leadership as a special class of people to be looked up to by the people (instead of simply shepherding, while the "laypeople" grow and become leaders themselves) was beginning in the time of Ignatius and the others. Those writers felt that this would be the best way for the Church to survive during persecution. Already here, we have the change of the purpose of ministry, from "holding fast to the doctrine" to maintaining an institution. It was successful, and by the time of Constantine, it had grown into a "microcosm of the Empire" that impressed him enough to exalt the Church.

 

What do you think about Idolatry of RC? I have never heard you condemn it.

Do you support Papacy?

 

Papal Worship False

 

standingfirminChrist,

Ha ha!

Mike

 

After 25 pages this discussion needs to be continued elsewhere.
DHK