My church defined your church's bible

So your concerns would be assuaged if our activities were limited to what "normal people do with living people" (whatever that may refer to) ?

Where is the verse about "understanding the need for the gospel and its significance"? That's not in the bible, that's just your tradition.

I could discuss arguments put forward on the other side, like Acts 2:39 "this promise is for you and your children", or 1Cor 10:2 "all were baptized into Moses and ate the same spiritual food (including the children!)". I could point out that if your children are learning from you, that makes them disciples and you have to baptize them according to Mt 28:19.

And then you will rejoin with your arguments about those verses, and on and on it will go, but you will never have any unity in the churches by going back and forward with these scriptural arguments.

If 1 Cor 4:6 meant what you I assume are claiming it means, then the Corinthians would have had to abandon half the Christian religion. Paul would have come into Corinth, set up the church, taught them the Christian doctrines. Then later on, when he sent them 1 Corinthians, the Corinthians would have said "Oh no, he says to only hold to what is written. We have to stop following all the precepts of the Christian religion he taught us, and just limit ourselves to the OT. What's more, we have to take up all the Jewish law again, because nobody has written Acts or Romans yet, so we have no basis for not keeping the law".

When your interpretation results in an absurdity, I think you need to re-think. The context of 1Cor 4:6 is that people in the church were judging each other, and they were becoming arrogant with respect to each other. People were becoming elitist because they had done more good works than some others, and they were then judging their standing before God on that basis. So Paul says that when it comes to judging others standing before God, don't go beyond what is written so that you don't become arrogant.

That doesn't have anything to do with whether tradition is important in the life of the church and its doctrine. If it meant not to hold to Paul's oral tradition, then it would directly contradict what Paul said in 1 Thessalonians.

Furthermore, in all likelyhood, the church would have understood Paul's statement as referring to the OT, since the understanding of the NT canon hadn't developed yet, and in large part didn't even exist yet.

You're nitpicking. The fact is, Orthodox accept non-immersion when compelling practical concerns warrant it.

But the Orthodox also recommend fasting before baptism where possible.

You're trying too hard here to nitpick out a difference where these is none. And yet how many major doctrinal differences will I find just in the baptist churches, let alone in all the protestant churches?

Well here we come back to interpretation again, since scripture doesn't come with a built-in infallible lexicon. For those lexicons that are compiled you find possibilities like "dipping" and "Jewish ceremonial washing", and you find verses like Mark 7:4 "as the baptizing of cups, and pots, brasen vessels, and of tables" which obviously means washing, and it is doubtful they were immersing tables.

Of course, we could argue back and forth about lexicons, and whose lexicon is better than whose, but would that result in unity of the church? Pretty soon everyone will have to have their own church because their own particular combination of views on any particular doctrine will not coincide with anybody elses.

 

How am I presupposing anything by simply doing what the bible says and following the written and oral traditions? You are the one who has taken Paul's admonition to follow the traditions whether handed down orally or written, and made the arbitrary decision, (ironically based on no scripture) that they must be the same thing, and you can therefore ignore part of Paul's command. If you can't trust the oral tradition, which is your claim, why did Paul say to follow it? You suggest that they are the same thing, yet one you can trust, the other you can't. So why would Paul tell you to follow an authority that can't be trusted?

But why follow the teaching received orally, since according to you it is untrustworthy?

So then, you conceed they were instructed to follow the oral teaching. Since you claim to follow sola scriptura, show me the verse where that instruction was recinded.

Because it was understood from the Tradition. I could just as much ask you why scripture gives no guidance about what age and understanding is sufficient to be deemed a believer. Some might say 3 years old, others 10, 15, 18. Scientists say the brain isn't fully developed until 25. There is enormous range for argument there for sola scriptura adherents, but for those adhering to tradition, everything is quite clear.

Yes, there is not always a way to test the early traditions, just like there is not always a way to test scripture. Was Paul right with all his advice? You can't test it, you take it on faith. Is the tradition of the church right? We take it on faith. Is the canon right? Yes, we take it on faith.

It is also a living tradition, in that we believe the gates of hell will not prevail against the church. So we believe the current church correctly follows the early fathers, and the only time you need to test that is if the church falls into schism, and you need to test the antiquity and catholicity of competing claims.

So, you can test traditions against scripture, but if scripture is silent or ambiguous, then you have no basis for disputing tradition. As for Irenaeus, if there was any dispute in the church concerning the Eucharist, then we could look more closely at Irenaeus. But since there really isn't any dispute, then the ambiguity of Irenaeus is moot, since we can look at him in the broader context of tradition to resolve the ambiguity.

One might just as well ask why the apostles didn't write an unambiguous systematic theology and save a lot of problems down the track.

The fact is, there isn't much ambiguity in doctrine when you interpret scripture in the context of tradition, but there is a ton of ambiguity when you interpret scripture by itself. The former kept one church for a thousand years. The latter has bred thousands of denominations who frankly, don't agree on anything at all.

The fact is that the apostles built a church, and then wrote epistles on an ad-hoc basis to solve ad-hoc issues. They didn't write in a systematic way to provide a systematic theology. And the epistles they did write assume a certain background knowledge (e.g. "hold to the oral traditions").

Apparently they thought that the written plus oral traditions would hold the church in good stead, which it did for a thousand years. When churches abandoned part of the deposit of faith, when it rejected tradition, then we have splintering upon splintering of the church.

If you've got specific things you want to discuss in the Jewish tradition, let's do it.

However I have to point out that the NT writers themselves relied on the Jewish extra-biblical tradition.

At Mt 2:23 it says "that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled, ‘He shall be called a Nazarene.’" There is no such scripture, it is an extra-scriptural tradition.

At 1 Cor 10:4 it says "the water that God provided for Israel: "All drank the same supernatural drink. For they drank from the supernatural Rock which followed them, and the Rock was Christ". But there is no scripture saying the rock followed them.

In his first epistle Peter tells of Christ’s journey to the netherworld during which "he went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah" (1 Pet. 3:19). There is a growing scholarly consensus that the interpretive key to this verse is found in Genesis 6:1-7, in which "the sons of God" cohabited with "the daughters of men" and produced ghastly offspring. According to ancient interpretation, these "sons of God" were actually rebellious angels who sinned by mating with human women.

It appears likely that this is Peter’s view as well. "For if God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but cast them to pits of nether gloom to be kept until judgment…then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trial" (2 Pet. 2:4, 9). Note the close link to Noah and Geneses 6. Compare too Jude 6, which says that "the angels that did not keep their own position but left their proper dwelling have been kept by him in eternal chains in the nether gloom until the judgment of the great day…" These references are evidence that Peter has this traditional interpretation of Genesis 6:1-4 in mind when he writes of Christ’s preaching "to the spirits in prison."

Jude 9 relates an altercation between Michael and Satan: "When the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, disputed about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a reviling judgment upon him, but said, ‘The Lord rebuke you.’" This is not found in scripture, it is an oral tradition.

At Jude 14 it says "It was of these also that Enoch in the seventh generation from Adam prophesied, saying, ‘Behold, the Lord came with his holy myriads, to execute judgment on all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness which they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.’"

This statement may also be found in the non-Scriptural book of 1 Enoch (1:9); but Jude’s use of it does not really say anything about the inspiration of 1 Enoch. Rather, he asserts that the saying itself actually hales from the venerable Enoch, whose righteous life is mentioned in Genesis 4-5.

Here is a tradition, a prophetic revelation, which was passed on orally for millennia before being captured first in a non-inspired written document (1 Enoch) and then in an inspired document (Jude).

At 2 Tim 3:8 Paul dips into rabbinic tradition to supply the names, Jannes and Jambres, of the magicians who opposed Moses in Pharoah’s court .

James tells us that because of Elijah’s prayer there was no rain in Israel for three years (Jas. 5:17), but the Old Testament account of Elijah’s altercation with King Ahab says nothing of him praying (1 Kgs. 17).

Even the Golden Rule, "So whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them; for this is the law and the prophets" (Matt. 7:12) was anticipated by Jewish oral Tradition. Rabbi Hillel taught, "What you do not like should be done to you, do not to your fellow; this is the whole Torah, all the rest is commentary."

.... CONTINUED...

 

Firstly, I don't know what worldly power you are talking about, because pretty much all the orthodox doctrines can be found in the pre-Constantine era. Unless perhaps you want to dispute the finer points of the trinity, which most baptists appear reluctant to do.

As for man wanting to be above question, I am not talking about traditions of men, but rather the Holy Tradition which is passed on by the apostles. You claim you don't trust men at all, but you trusted the men who told you want the canon is, and you trust the men in the orthodox church who copied the scriptures down to this day. If you regard us as engaging in "sleight of man, cunning and craftiness", then you have no cause for trusting our canon or our copiers.

That depends - do you think the teachings of the early church fathers support the bishop of Rome wielding absolute power and proclaiming doctrine infallibly and without the church's consent? I don't think you do believe that, and if you do I could give you quotes from the fathers specifically saying that nobody in the church decides things without the consent of the church.

If it be the case that you don't believe this, aren't you really arguing a nonsense? You can't compare the papacy with say, the monarchial episcopate which dates back at least to 100AD with Ignatius, or infant baptism for which there is no evidence that anybody disputed it.

Firstly, if you are talking about "your groups", i.e. the Orthodox church, there are no divisions whatsoever, between the Russian, Greek, Jerusalem, Alexandrian, Byzantine or Antiochian churches. None at all.

If you want to mention the coptic church, okay, except that they have been meeting with the orthodox leaders and have agreed that there never was any disagreement and the disputes were really all a big misunderstanding. It may take some time to figure out how to implement full unity with that church, but you can hardly compare this to even the range of thought within baptist circles, let alone protestant.

If this tiny empiral reference of yours is supposed to prove the problems of tradition, what on earth would it do to the notion of sola scriptura?

Interesting philosophizing, but where is the scriptural basis for distinguishing the church and the organization? Where is the scriptural basis for leaving the church the apostles built, and forming your own church? Where does Paul advocate that? When Jesus said "take it to the church" (Mt 18:17), he assumes the church is visible, not invisible. When Paul writes to a church in a city, or Jesus addresses the church in a city in Revelation, he doesn't assume it has broken into multiple organizations, some of which are doing well, others of which have lost their zeal. He assumes one church. Where I live there are two protestant churches built adjacent to each other! And in the small suburb where I live there are 5 different protestant churches. Where does scripture say that is normal?

 

I'm a little vague on what you mean by an "evolved" practice, or what you mean by "demanding" that they be followed. If you join an orthodox church, nobody is going to demand very much in terms of how involved you want to get.

 

How is it any different in principle to trusting the church's
preservation of scripture and its preservation of the tradition of
what scripture is canonical compared to its preservation of tradition?

When people are forming an apologetic for the preservation of
scripture they usually talk about the number of manuscripts and the
geographic distribution of those manuscripts as evidence that nobody
interfered with them along the way. The argument has merit, although
it does suffer from the problem that it can't reach into the earliest
period of the church when the evidence is too sparse.

Why not the same for tradition? One can observe that many traditions
were the same in all the churches, even though they weren't ruled by
one head.

The other apologetic often used about scripture is that God would have
preserved it, because of its necessity to his church. But why wouldn't
he have preserved tradition also? I think you could probably admit
that the orthodox church hasn't changed since the 4th century, because
the amount of evidence from that period is overwhelming. So why would
God have let tradition go astray between the 2nd and 4th century and
then have it preserved so accurately since then to the 21st century?

And yet there is very limited manuscript evidence before the 4th
century for the scriptures. Some people have argued that the
trinitarian formula at Mt 28:19 is a later addition because it varies
from the baptisimal formula in Acts and there are some quotes by
Eusebius lacking the formula. There are no manuscripts of this verse
from the first three centuries. You say "What I don't trust is your
church and that it actually kept everything perfectly". Well, why do
you trust this scripture? There are churches now disavowing the
trinitarian baptism because of arguments about this verse.

Orthodox are under no illusions that everything that happens in your
local cathedral is Holy Tradition. We know the difference between Holy
Tradition, good traditions and bad traditions. In principle an
Orthodox church does not have to do everything the way it is in fact
done.

But the reason an Orthodox service will not look the way a baptist
service will look like is because we use the bible as a model for how
God should be worshipped. Firstly, the Judeo-Christian tradition has
always used a lot of symbols and imagery. The whole of Revelation is
symbolic. Baptism is symbolic, the Eucharist is symbolic, the passover
is symbolic. Everything in the Orthodox service has a symbol which is
meant to draw the worshippers thoughts towards God. The specific
things in the Orthodox service are often found in scripture. Incense
is used in Revelation and prophesised to be used in the nations in
Malachi. Images of cherubim are used in Exodus 25. In Ps 99:5 they are
told to bow before the footstool of the Lord, which we know from 1Ch
28:2 is the ark. It is a normal part of the Judeo Christian tradition
to use imagery as a substitute for what it stands for.

So, in theory an Orthodox church could worship considerably
differently, and use a whole new or different set of symbols and
imagery, but it would kind of defeat the purpose since most people
know what the current imagery means.

I would question your understanding that there is "all this other
stuff". Most of the things you are including in the "other stuff" are
not Holy Tradition at all, they are just traditions we keep because
they are beneficial and we choose to, or else they are found in
scripture, but are just interpreted differently by us than by you, or
else we say that scripture is just silent.

For example, all the baptist churches I have been to have allowed
children to take communion. I don't know if that is common in your
part of the world or not, but that is what I have experienced. On the
other hand the presbyterian churches I have been to do not allow
children to take communion. To me that's a little
inconsistent. Anyway, I'm sure there are some baptist churches that do
not allow children to take communion, and there are probably some
infant-baptizing churches that do allow children to take communion.

You're going to have a hard time convincing everybody the right
solution from scripture, but in tradition it is clear that children
may take the Eucharist. Cyprian makes a passing reference to infant
communion around the year 250AD, and assumes it is a fact. On the
other hand Calvin said it was clear and obvious that infants should be
baptized but should not receive communion. It is a matter of record
that the Roman Catholic church ceased infant communion between the
14th and 16th centuries.

Au contraire, I do not believe faith in the canon is faith in man,
because the scripture says to the people of God that "the Holy Spirit
will lead you into all truth". How _you_ escape that accusation I
don't know, because your belief in what is the canon ultimately rests
on YOU does it not?

Neither is following the traditions relying on man, because men merely
copy what our predecessors did, just like scribes merely copy their
exemplar. Why do you escape the charge of relying on man because you
rely on the scribes of scripture, and we fall under the charge of
relying on men because we rely on those who pass on the traditions?

Now you say that it is a stretch to claim that doctrines were
perfectly understood and "neatly omitted", but why is it the sola
scriptura churches cannot agree on infant communion, yet there is
never a word of dispute about it in the ancient church?

Well actually they do say that, because the letter is addressed to the
churches that Paul visited and passed on his oral teaching to, and he
writes his command "hold to the traditions taught orally", ASSUMING
that the reader is in a church that has received the oral
traditions. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense for somebody reading
Paul's letter who hasn't received the oral traditions, because they'll
have a hard time following it. Thus, the assumption is that the
scripture will be read in the church that received the oral
traditions. Your church hasn't received them, so you get confused when
you get this verse and start shrugging your shoulders saying you don't
know what these traditions are.

Neither did the readers of 2 Thessalonians have the apostles with them either!!!!

I guess if you had joined the church in Thessalonica after Paul had
visited and then had received the letter, the elders would be
instructing you in the oral traditions and you would be arguing with
the elders saying "I don't believe you, I don't trust you, how can you
be sure Paul said that, how do you know he meant that, let's wait a
hundred years till the canon is assembled".

That is absurd don't you think?

CONTINUED.....

 

........CONTINUED

Yes, it comes down to trusting the church that Jesus built to pass on
accurately the written and oral traditions. This is what the first
readers of 1 Thessalonians had to do, and this is what you must do
too, and you do do it for the written, why not the oral? The 1st
century church did it for the oral, why don't you want to be like the
1st century church?

Magisterium is a western concept. Faith in the canon, in Orthodoxy
does not particularly rely on the teaching office of the church. It is
a Holy Tradition, based on the faith of the people. Just like you sort
of, except it is the faith of the people in the church that Christ
built, not you and your bible under a tree.

The church fathers are not God-breathed, but they are a reliable
witness to the Holy Tradition. So if for example, the witness of the
church fathers is universally in favour of infant communion, that is
clear evidence of the Holy Tradition concerning that doctrine.

We wouldn't dream of it! See above.

Peter was wrong because he deviated from the Christian Tradition. Paul
could not correct him based on scripture, because there wasn't really
a scripture for Peter's Judaizing. No one person is infallible. That's
why it is unwise for you to rely on your own feelings concerning the
canon, because you are not infallible either. But the Church is
infallible when it acts in unity, because the Spirit guides it into
all truth, and the gates of hell will not prevail against us.

I think in reality, you would not be happy if somebody turned up at
church and declared that they didn't believe in your canon because
they'd studied the evidence and found certain books wanting. In all
likelyhood your church might consider kicking them out. But you've got
no basis for saying that the consensus of your particular church is
authoritative.

It doesn't prove it's right, we believe it by faith, just like you
believe the written traditions by faith, yet doubt the oral
traditions.

Since you apparently believe the canon either based on your feelings
or based on the evidences of men, aren't you putting yourself above
church AND Jesus?

But the church is the body of Christ and/or the bride of Christ. It is
not "just men" when it acts in unity, it is guided by the Holy
Spirit. We have God's promise about the church that hell will not
prevail against it.

And don't believe anything just because one authority says so. If the
pope says a certain thing, ask what the other apostolic churches
say. Ask what the early church fathers said. If it contradicts what
was universally taught in the early church, don't follow it.

I think you misunderstand Orthodox doctrine. The church hierarchy is
not the ultimate authority in the church. The laity have the option to
overthrow the hierarchy if they deviate from the Holy Traditions. This
has in fact happened once or twice, especially when the secular powers
have tried to interfere in church affairs. So I agree with you, don't
follow anybody into corruption if they deviate from catholic faith.

But what is the simple gospel of salvation? Pretty soon you can't
preach a sermon at church because you're afraid of getting too
specific and offending somebody who believes a little different than
you do. Protestantism is getting more and more minimal over time. The
early reformers were very specific about what they believed, and they
had long statements of faith. Over time they have been thrown away
because nobody wants to offend anybody.

When I was a protestant, trying to practice sola scriptura, I was very
specific about what I believed. The trouble is, none of the churches I
went to held the same combination of beliefs I did. I agreed with the
baptists about some things, the presbyterians about other things, the
pentacostals about other things. So they all pleased me and offended
me all at once.

I'm not sure what you mean by "doing enough". I'm sure you are doing
plenty of stuff. I just encourage people to do it in the context of
the fullness of truth.

I'm sure we do look "just like another group", when there are so many
groups out there. But I would ask you to consider that our group has
been doing the same thing for 2000 years, and your group might be only
semi-recognizable to your forbears 100 years ago.

If a church, Orthodox included, tells you that something was taught in
the first four centuries, don't assume it, test it!

You tell me in all honesty. Does Ignatius teach the monarchial
episcopate? Does he teach that there is a papacy that has supreme
authority over the church? I think the answer is obvious, and I
wouldn't ask you to take my word for it.

And "you" (protestants) can't agree on anything at all. Touche?

But I wouldn't ask you to believe me about what the fathers
taught. Find out for yourself what they taught, and follow it. I think
you'll find they weren't baptists.

The trouble is, you're going to have trouble working out, 2000 years
after the fact, which traditions were universally accepted traditions,
and which were not, and which were considered divine traditions, and
which were not. To compare apples to apples, you would need to do
that.

 

I'm having a bit of trouble understanding exactly what you are proposing as to who the "Sons of God" in Genesis are.

One other factoid - many of the Greek copies of the scripture here in Genesis actually say "angels", leaving no option as regard to interpretation. Which reading Peter or Jude had access to is unknown, but it would not be the first time that an NT quotation of the Greek OT relies and assumes a particular interpretation of the OT contained in the Greek, which later Hebrew scholars would be less certain of. A bit like the "A virgin shall give birth to.." in the Greek OT, which some Hebrew scholars want to interpret "A young woman shall give birth to..".

Here again, tradition provides the correct interpretation. It sounds like you've come up with a clever interpretation of these verses, but is it the Tradition? Even the tradition that the apostles knew of and held to? Not sure, more investigation would need to be done, but I see that even your scholars can't even agree on the details.

 

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So you say written is easier to preserve than oral. That's an opinion I suppose. Since when does doctrine come from opinions?

I could form an "opinion" that written is hard to preserve too, and abandon the written. That would not be a faithful solution however.

But Paul said three times said to hold to the traditions, without qualifying that there was a sunset clause for when the canon was formed. How can you hold to sola scriptura when you can't point me to the sunset clause?

Well, let's investigate them if you can point to what they are.

Obviously the Nicene formula wasn't passed down verbatim from the apostles. However, part of the argument by the anti-Arian side was that the full deity of Christ was an apostolic tradition. When I look at the pre-Nicene writings, I think they are right.

I spent quite a few Christian years confused about what the bible actually teaches. I wavered for a long time drifting from trinitarian, to oneness to arianism, before concluding that trinitarianism was slightly more likely to be in line with the scriptures than other options.

But now I look back on it, I think I wasted my time because I could have just trusted the church on this one. Maybe you think I'm stupider than the average Joe that I couldn't see straight off that the bible teaches the trinity. But do I have to be so smart to figure out everything for myself, me and my bible under a tree? Of course, most Christians tend to just accept whatever they have grew up in or whatever they are told by whoever got to them first, and generally the scriptural arguments can be quite convincing. I found the JW materials to present quite a good case. It was more to do with the other baggage that goes along with being a JW that put me off.

So given the harsh reality that many of us can be persuaded of a lot of things given a clever enough argument, and we can't always understand the scriptures ourselves, shouldn't there be someone to trust to help us?

The Orthodox would call it giving your ancestors a vote, instead of every Christian re-inventing the wheel every time.

You would say that any smart fellow can come along and set up a "church" and help people understand the scriptures. But then how does your average God-seeker know who to pick?

But how can anybody just come along and set up a church? Well, you couldn't have done it in say the year 60AD, because you wouldn't have been able to hold to the traditions unless you were in the church that the apostles built. You wouldn't have been able to do it in the year 150AD, because you would not have known what the canon was without asking the church the apostles built. If you'd just looked around for Jesus teachings, you would have had to choose between the gnostic writings and other sects. Even if you'd restricted your books to the ones that the apostolic churches used, you still wouldn't know for sure the canon until the apostolic churches settled it for sure.

So you couldn't have set up a baptist church in the first centuries because you would lack the theological foundation for doing so. Yet you think you can now. It doesn't quite sit right.

Now you complain that the apostolic churches hold to the traditions, and you would have them jetison them in favour of sola scriptura. But you can't tell us the verse containing the sunset clause that would allow us to do so. Nor could you point to a scripture that teaches sola scriptura.

Orthodox would say this is a gnostic heresy to deny the goodness of the physical reality. In the OT God was only known as spirit, but in the NT we have the incarnation. No-one has ever seen God, but God the only-begotten was made flesh and dwelt amongst us. What we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life and the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you.

The Christian tradition has never cut itself off from the physical. Baptism is physical. The Eucharist is physical. Jas 5:14 says to ask the elders to annoint you with oil if you are sick. The apostles laid on hands for the people to receive the spirit. In Acts 19:12, even a hankerchief of Paul healed the sick.

Where does it say worshipping in spirit means renouncing the physical reality?

What the bible says is that earthly worship is a shadow of what goes on in heaven. The bible never says that the OT worship is a shadow of NT worship. Go look up shadow in your concordance.

And the Orthodox try and obey this precept and make our worship a shadow of what goes on in heaven. Revelation tells us what goes on in heaven, and you can say it is symbolic, but then so is Orthodox worship symbolic of what goes on in heaven.

Why we do what we do is because we pass on the traditions. Why they are traditions, I suggest the answer is to be found in the fact that Christianity grew up from Judaism. The apostles were Jews, Jesus was a Jew, the first Christians were Jews, and they all grew up worshipping in the synagogue, so naturally this was the only model for worship they would have known. As you see from reading Acts, the early Christians still went to synagogue, so obviously they had no qualms about the Jewish form of worship. It was only later when the non-Christian Jews would no longer tolerate the Christian Jews that Christianity split off from synagogue worship. Why do you have qualms that the early church didn't?

According to what logic would God be happy with a kind of worship one day, and not happy the next?

Not sure what you're talking about here.

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Not sure what the opinion of modern day Jews proves. Jewish catacombs
of the period contain icons. The Palestinian Talmud records (in Abodah
Zarah 48d) "In the days of Rabbi Jochanan men began to paint pictures
on the walls, and he did not hinder them" and "In the days of Rabbi
Abbun men began to make designs on mosaics, and he did not hinder
them." Also, the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan repeats the command against
idols, but then says "but a stone column carved with images and
likenesses you may make upon the premises of your sanctuaries, but not
to worship them."

I suggest if you do more research you may find there less difference
between the Jewish tradition and the Orthodox tradition than you may
think.

This is really just a cultural thing, as in the middle eastern cultures bowing is merely a sign of respect. In the OT there are dozens of instances: Gen 27:29; 33:3-7; 37:10; 41:43; 42:6; 43:26; 47:31; 48:12; 49:8; Ruth 2:10; 1 Sam 20:41; 24:8; 25:23, 41; 28:14; 2 Sam 9:8; 14:22, 33; 18:21; 24:20; 1 Kings 1:15, 23 , 31, 47, 53; 2:19; 2 Kings 2:15; 4:37; 1 Chr 21:21; Est 3:2 ; Isa 60:14).

In the NT, you find people bowing down to Jesus who have no notion that he might be God, they only know he is a good Rabbi. e.g. Mt 8:2.

The trouble is, you are approaching this with western sensibilities.

Well, one would have to ask why Revelation would use incense as a
symbol, and using the word "censer", if the new Christian church
wasn't using them. It would be a bad choice of symbol if it wasn't part of Christian thought, no?

But Malachi is even clearer:

Malachi 1:11 For from the rising of the sun even to its setting, My
name will be great among the nations, and in every place incense is
going to be offered to My name, and a grain offering that is pure; for
My name will be great among the nations," says the LORD of hosts.

You tell me: At what point in history do the nations (aka the
gentiles) offer incense to God's name in every place?

The other thing about Revelation here is that in Rev 5:7 the elders
hold the prayers of the saints and offer them to God. Now you can say
it is symbolic, but symbolic of what? Why do saints in heaven offer
the prayers of the saints on earth to God, if they have nothing to do
with the saints prayers?

Now the people of the OT bowed down to the tabernacle, which Moses was
told to make a shadow of the heavenly things: "[the priests who serve
in the Temple in Jerusalem] serve unto the example and shadow of
heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to
make the tabernacle: for, See, saith he, that thou make all things
according to the pattern shewed to thee in the mount" (Hebrews 8:5;
cf. Exodus 25:40).

In the new covenant we know a bit more about who and what is in
heaven, it it is reflected in the iconography.

Not the details, only the philosophy that leads to the general style
of worship.

Firstly, we do not believe it is particularly the church leaders who
pass down traditions. The biggest obstacle to change in the Orthodox
church today is the laity. And yes, there are things which need to
change, but the hierarchy finds it very difficult to change anything
because of outcry from the laity.

Secondly, you assume divine guidance is needed to pass down
traditions, but you don't need it to copy the scriptures. In truth,
it's a lot easier to keep a tradition of whether infants are baptised
and whether infants may take communion, than it is to make a copy of
the scriptures by hand. Try it some time and you will find out!

If the promise is not implied, why does Paul admonish the church to
hold to the oral traditions? If it is that tough to keep these
traditions, then Paul was playing with fire in telling the church to
keep them.

Again with putting the burden of proof on us. But our church was given
the traditions by the apostles, and our church has passed on the
traditions of the apostles, as we were instructed to do. You doubt
that we have done it, but you can't produce any documentation that we
have changed our doctrines. You make a lot of assumptions about what
went on 2000 years ago, and what didn't go on. But you can't document
them with certainty.

Do you understand why we are not willing to abandon our traditions
which we believe the apostles gave us based on your say so?

And I suppose your particular church has got it right, and the others
don't? Either the presbyterians fell short in their reformation, or
the Oneness Pentacostals and Jehovah's witnesses overshot and
over-reformed from Catholic influence?

Is it really *THAT* hard to believe that maybe, just maybe, the church
the apostles built might have been able to pass on the traditions for
a couple of hundred years until more or less everything had been
discussed and agreed in written form by the church fathers, and which
is still followed 1700-1800 years later? Is that so much harder to
believe than that the truth is certain in scripture, it's just that
none of the sola scriptura churches can agree on what it is?

We have him in letter but not in person too!!

You said it was different back then because they had the apostle in
person. But it aint true, they didn't have him in person, which is why
he had to send them the letter.

As for "state institutions", we have writings of the church fathers
pre-Constantine, which is normally when those with a paranoid bent
would claim corruption by the state. Except that these pre-state
fathers are following Orthodox doctrine, not protestant doctrine.

JWs etc would claim that the state overly influenced the Nicean
formula, but I don't see too many baptists disavowing the trinity.

And you talk about 2000 years of tumultuous church history, but I'm
willing to defend every Orthodox doctrine from the first four
centuries, so let's not exagerrate here.

We don't merely have "age". It also so happens, that our church is the
same church that the apostles formed. The baptist church was formed by
John Smyth in 1612. The Mormon church was formed by Joseph Smith in
1830. The Orthodox church was formed by Peter at Pentacost.

What scripture commanded to go form a new church?

Not sure what you refer to.


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1 John 2:19 They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for
if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they
went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us.

If the church was merely believers, not required to belong to the
visible church the apostles built, what is the point in the apostles
talking about those leaving the visible church? They might have just
gone out to start another church.

Contrary to modern thought, the early church had a keen sense that the
church should be one. John 17:22 "The glory which You have given Me I
have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are
one. Ephesians 4:4-6 There is one body and one Spirit, just as also
you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one
baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and
in all.

It doesn't seem to mean much to the modern protestant mindset.

"These definitions (i.e decisions made in councils) must then be
acclaimed by the whole people of God, including the laity, because it
is the whole people of God that constitutes the guardian of
Tradition." - The Orthodox Church, Timothy Ware P252.

We don't assume it is identical, we believe it is identical in
doctrine only. Doctrine spills over into practice in a general sense,
but not in specifics. As I said, not everything is Holy Tradition.

As far as supposed "hints and clues", isn't that a bit hypocritical
given your "hints and clues" approach to scripture? You think there
are hints and clues about infant baptism and presumably about infant
communion (although you havn't stated where you stand on that issue),
but in honesty, the scripture doesn't state anything explicitely,
there are only hints and clues, which is why presbyterians and
baptists can still engage in lively debates.

Yet the witness of the entirety of tradition is much more explicit
that mere suppositions, because there is no record whatsoever of
anybody in the church debating the merits of infant baptism. According
to you, every church in the whole world simply rolled over and
abandoned the apostolic traditions, and the did so without leaving any
record of dispute or debate. That's an amazing thing don't you think?
How hard would it be for me to change the opinion of even one baptist
church today, let alone every baptist church? Boy, churches can be
political beasts. It's hard to get agreement on any change in even a
laid back church. To think I could change the opinion of every baptist
church even if I wanted to, even if I engaged in a concerted world
wide tour, would be hopeless.

Really? I don't think you would reduce division by any measurable
amount. Just take some of the issues that protestant churches can't
seem to help themselves but take a position on: infant baptism, infant
communion, calvinism/arminianism, congregational vs presbyterian
polity, speaking in tongues/no speaking in tongues. There is the seeds
right there for 32 churches, each with their own combination of
doctrines.

And you are worried about what? That we retain the complex form of
worship inherited from Judaism? It ought hardly rank as an issue.

If all the postapostolic leaders in unison, and yet independently,
interpreted the scriptures in an Orthodox fashion, and not in a
protestant baptist fashion, it doesn't say much for your position does
it?

That's why local traditions and traditions of part of the church are
not authoritative. The catholic faith is authoritative - that is the
faith of the church as a whole. Peter followed the catholic tradition,
then he departed from the catholic tradition, and was therefore wrong.

Actually, Paul points out that Peter used to eat with the gentiles,
and also he points out that the gentiles have received the gospel
already. Those two things amount to the tradition, both of the church
and of Peeter.

You blandly call us an "organization", but we are the Church, the
bride of Christ, the body of Christ. We are the "organization"
entrusted with the word of God, in both its written and oral forms,
both guarding it in substance, and guarding it in
extent. (i.e. guarding both the text of scripture, and the canon of
scripture, both the oral traditions, and their extent). Yes you must
trust us, because we are the custodians of God's plan of salvation, as
expressed in written and oral forms. If you don't trust us, then it is
just you and your speculations under a tree. Well, unless God decides
to give you a first person revelation. You take our scriptures, you trust our scribes, you follow our canon, then you fall short in not following the entire deposit of faith.

I wish you'd tell us what this state church thingy is. What state is
supposedly controlling the Orthodox church?

The Bereans may have checked Paul's authority by verifying the crux of
his argument from scripture, but clearly the Bereans didn't find all
Paul's doctrines in scripture did they? How did they check everything
Paul said?

You keep saying the only difference is age, but who founded our
church, and who founded yours?

How can we be "one-upping" our way to be the one true group, when
we're just saying the exact same thing from when we WERE the only
group?
We've been saying for 1500 years that we believe in One
Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. Is it our fault that others came
along a thousand years later and told us we weren't the One Holy
Catholic and Apostolic Church?



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Constitutions and doctrinal lists is the exact complaint that
Orthodoxy levels against the west, both in its protestant and catholic
forms. Both have a scholastic obsession with finer points, definitions
and so-forth, whether it be the catholic catechism, or the baptist
confession of faith.

But I tell you what: if you can get your baptist pastor to baptize a
baby, THEN I'll say hey, you're practicing what you preach. Until
then, you look a bit hypocritical.

It's perfectly fine that you are doing what you can with the truth you
have. The fact that you don't have the fullness of truth is not
something we judge you over, but just regret that you are missing out
on.

For example, with the protestant rejection of the physical in favour
of the spiritual, many protestant churches would not bother following
James 5:14 - annoint the sick with oil. Protestants have a hard time
fitting this into their theology. What good is oil anyway?

You can ignore the rituals, that's fine, but it's your loss, not
ours. We're happy you follow the truth you have, and don't judge you
that you don't have it all.

I don't see how you can claim he doesn't teach the monarchial episcopate:

"Give ye heed to the bishop, that God also may give heed to you. I am
devoted to those who are subject to the bishop, the presbyters, the
deacons." - Ignatius to polycarp.

Instead of just judging the ECFs by the scriptures, I suggest you also
judge the ECFs against each other, yourself against the ECFs. Are you
so wise in your interpretation that you outweigh dozens of bishops? If
so, how and why?

I'm not sure what you mean by "all that liturgical stuff". Everybody
who cares to investigate realises that the early church was
liturgical. The word is even used in the New Testament. Acts 13:2
"While they were engaged in the liturgy of the Lord and fasting".

If it's so confusing, how come nobody disputed it for 2000 years, and
still nobody in the Orthodox church disputes it? I guess you can make
disputation out of anything, but if something worked for 2000 years, I
don't see how you can seriously claim confusion.

Well what will work, you tell me?

But the goal here is not to stifle and supress anybody else. We just
proclaim the truth. We don't compromise it to achieve unity. As the
Emperor Michael's sister put it "Better that my brother's Empire
should perish, than the purity of the Orthodox Faith".