Believers of Acts 2:38 down through history?

[Evang.Benincasa]

Originally Posted by Aquila

You still don't get it.

No Chris, its you who doesn't get it. Validation through evidence outside of the Bible? My old man the Atheist extraordinaire. Would get a gleam in his eye, with eyebrow raised high when individuals spoke like you. What would follow would be series of questions which were lined up to lead you to admitting that what you believed in was as false as a rubber chicken.

Why? Because the Bible being the anchor, the shield, the sword, the armor, was now being laid aside.To leave you wide open to answer questions where Google couldn't save you. My lands, Christianity stands and falls on the Bible, and looking through history as a life line? Well, sunny Jim, time to pucker up and kiss some icons and bishop rings! Oooh, but even more historical data, are those barefoot gurus, wrapped in blankets, bow down and kiss the dirty wrinkled feet of the guru. History is rife with the historic evidence of the Hindu cast system. Pastoral authority? My my, a Swami, a Guru, are sometimes called Maharaji or Babji, meaning father, or king. In sanskrit far more ancient and documented than Christianity the Guru holds authority over his devotees far beyond that of Christian priests or pastors. The Guru (depending upon his asceticism) is higher than god. No, Chris, the Bible is primary source evidence that's how historians work, also detective work. The Bible documents are the first witness, you have to destroy them in order to come up with another source of reference being "history?"

Originally Posted by Aquila

You're so narrow minded you don't care about how anyone else thinks, feels, or desires that claims be validated.

If I had a dollar for everytime pyschological projection is used by a poster I would be wealthy. Chris, it is you who is narrow minded, you want us to believe that Medieval mud farmers had salvation from their beliefs in some combination of Druid Mythology mingled with Roman Catholicism? Madame Blavatsky would be proud of you. These Medieval serfs and illiterate monks all going to heaven because they accepted Christ as their personal savior? Because that's what this brouhaha really all comes down to? Correct? No one needs a BIBLE? Why did Jesus even send out ministry? Why did Paul write instructional epistles if this all was supposedly swallowed up with the sands of time? The Bible is the anvil, and you my boy is just another hammer, waiting to be worn away in your unbelief.

Originally Posted by Aquila

Everyone has an interpretation of the Bible. And the more crazy the claim, the more we should desire to see it backed up. Because without anything to back it up, your interpretation is just a pathetic as anyone else's.

Yet, we don't go to history books, we go to the Bible. REFORMISTS went to the Bible, to find out that the Western and Eastern Roman Churches were pagan inspired. That the papacy and patriarches absorbed rituals, and pagan myth into their form of Christianity. The Bible, Chris, we go to the Rock, not to the sand.

Originally Posted by Aquila

When someone tells me that it doesn't matter if no one believed in Acts 2:38 down through the ages, because the Bible held the truth all along, it allows for a gap of history in which no soul was saved. It allows for the Gospel to have been a whopping failure for nearly 2,000 years. I can't embrace that kind of thinking. Right or wrong, I can't do it. I can't see the Gospel being that pathetic of a failure. I think it even insults the nature of God. With some evidence that this message was indeed present throughout the ages, I can actually take a deep breath and relax.

Chris, this is more of your emotional pleading, which becomes so dramatic that you hope we take notice. But, forget it, the Bible is the foundation the words which gives us instruction. If William Tyndale, or John Wycliffe would read our postings back and forth. They would rebuke you, not me. Because while you want us to sit naked in ashes waiting for some archeological find, they understood the Bible to be the only key to lead all men to salvation. Even if they didn't find it themselves. At least they tried, instead of giving everyone around them some teary eyed soppy wet drama.

Originally Posted by Aquila

I told you, I'm a big softy. I'm not as hard as you are. But I will say this. You had me considering how anemically pathetic this interpretation was and how incapable it was to endure and be a light to men for nearly 2,000 years. Not because I "needed" history to validate it. But because I needed to know it wasn't such an abysmal failure. Because if God proved incapable of providing the light of truth for men throughout all those centuries... He is certainly incapable of saving you or me.

Well, my boy, God isn't a softy, and therefore this is the reason you deem Him unrighteous.. Is a man more righteous than God? Well, Chris, you sure seem to build a case that if God doesn't excuse a group in Borneo for not being baptized He is unrighteous, and unmerciful. Joseph Smith needed to figure out how to work the American Indians into salvation, and he did by putting them into His book as Lamanites. Yet, Bahai Faith and Sri Rama Krishna taught that all rivers of religion lead to salvation and everlasting bliss. Your problem now becomes more than seeking historical evidence. You are now Bibleless, and now must deal with how does God save those who have no opportunity to hear the Gospel? People are born everyday, die everyday, in areas where the Bible may even be available but unable to be referenced. Saudi Arabia, Yemen, parts of Pakistan, and India. Not to mention other locations of the far east. Your doctrine of sincerely believe and go to heaven is a question begging doctrine.

Originally Posted by Aquila

Try to accept that not everyone thinks like you. Some of us have rather rigorous processes of examination that we must go through to feel at peace with an idea.

Chris, but you have no process of examination, other than your emotional pleadings. Bro, again, why aren't you an Eastern Orthodox? Why aren't you a Hindu? Don't ever talk to Rabbi Tovia Singer, because you will end up losing. But, I don't believe you even have a side, or any skin in this game. Ndavid noticed it well, and I have believed this for a while. You just like to rip wings off the ecclesiastical flies in the room. Burning the Apostolic Pentecostal ants under your magnifying glass. One minute you agree with us, and then shapeshift into the devil's advocate to watch how the kiddies play. I feel for you bro, but as time goes on, we shall see. I hope you make it.

Originally Posted by Aquila

I look at it this way... if no one else believed the way you interpret the text until the 20th century... it's a private interpretation. Something fringe and cultic to be rejected.

Bro, then you are in a bigger pickle, because you go all the way back to the Bible and tell us that some portions of time it was GONE. Dude, you are the one who needs to prove his case. Because Christian history as it has been recorded doesn't have your doctrine anywhere. Would you like me to quote Eastern and Western Roman church fathers, papacy, and clerics? They believed there was NO SALVATION outside of the Roman Church. You are alone my boy, no Bible, no historical evidence, just your emotional pleas.