Quote:
Originally Posted by Spirit&Truth
Thanks for the responses guys (or gals).
I'm with you on that Esaias, the Bible has to be the sole authority. I guess the more I have studied the Bible, it has caused me to be uneasy about a lot of the doctrines I have heard and taught personally for a long time. The conclusion I have come to is that we are often doing exactly what you mentioned-- teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.
The way I see it, someone at some point started teaching, for example, that men should be clean shaven. And for that time period and cultural context, I believe it was in line with the Spirit, and a good standard to distinguish from the trends of the world at that time. But somewhere down the line, a few generations later, it becomes so strong as a tradition that we end up teaching it as a doctrine as if it is backed up by Scripture. Beards are just one example that I think most folks these days can see eye-to-eye on, but there are other doctrines that I think are this way. The sad thing is that a lot of these "standards" are GOOD THINGS that have a place in the Christian walk, and I by no means think that traditions are always bad! We just have to make a distinction between lines that we are drawing as a group, and lines that are drawn in the Word of God.
As for believing the Word of God, I'm going to get into dangerous territory and just ask the questions weighing on my mind.
Someone confronted me with this statement (paraphrased): "you refute the doctrine of the Trinity because it wasn't made "orthodox" until the Council of Nicaea, but the very canon of New Testament books you read was also codified at the Council of Nicaea." This caused me to do some searching on the subject, and I feel it's a valid question. On that same topic, the New Testament church themselves didn't have a New Testament to read from, only the Old Testament, and even then most of the church were Gentiles, who may not have been able to read or had access to the Old Testament. So what was their faith based on? And how can we really trust that the New Testament is a reliable canon of books if it was canonized at the same Council that made the Trinity an orthodox doctrine?
Please don't misunderstand, I believe in the New Testament, and I have done my best to live it too. But these points have bothered me. I'm just looking for sound answers for this stuff. This has been literally keeping me up at night and I'm tired of wrestling. I sincerely believe that truth is truth, and it can stand scrutiny. So I have been choosing to honestly assess these things and search for the truth, no matter how difficult or painful, even if it makes me wrong.
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They had letters from the Apostles, copied and shared.
They also had the oral witness of Jesus from the Apostles.
A canon list existed before Nicea.
NT tithing, ie supporting ministry, is Biblical. Not necessarily an exact 10 percent. Could be more.
Facial hair was never an official standard
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