ndigila, i asked you a question on the other thread. Did the apostles work on sabbath day? history provides that until around 3rd century, only the church of rome and alexandria regarded sunday as a special day but the rest of christendom kept the sabbath as the commandment of god demanded. please separate communion from work because profaning the sabbath means work.
aish, grip. A most famous christian historian (eusebius of caesarea) recorded that christians worshipped on sunday, all christians. Even st cyril of jerusalem records it. I don't understand where you get the idea that only rome and alexandria did it. You may have to provide concrete quotes instead of simply saying "history proves..."
about the apostles working on saturday, i don't know.
the state of the dead couldn't change because jesus resurrected. actually the resurrection of the saints on the last day will be equal to all, whether you died in ot times, or you died today. About god not accepting anyone to honour the dead, it was because through the honour of the dead the pagans worshipped or communicated with the devils who masqueraded as the dead person, see the story of saul and the dead samuel. I'll give you several verses if you need to cross check.
but it did.
Consider these bible verses:
1 peter 4:6
for this reason the gospel was preached also to those who are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to god in the spirit
2 peter 3:18-20
for christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to god, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the spirit, by whom also he went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly were disobedient when once the divine longsuffering waited in the days of noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is eight souls, were saved through water.
in old testament times, everyone who died went to hades. When jesus died, he descended to hades, and preached to the souls being held captive. Those who accepted him followed him to paradise and those who didn't remained in hades.
Phillipians 1:23-24:
for i am hard-pressed between the two, having a desire to depart and be with christ, which is far better. Nevertheless to remain in the flesh is more needful for you.
paul knows very clearly that once he dies he was going to be with christ, he wasn't going to fall into a state of undefined unconsciousness. These bible verses destroy the soul-sleep argument.
So God forbid messing around with the dead in the Old Testament times because at time everyone went to Hades and it's a dangerous practice to mess around with those who are in Hades.
Hebrews 12:1
therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us
we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, so we can either ignore them or involve them in our worship.
Revelation 5:8
now when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty four elders fell down before the lamb, each having a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.
revelation 8:3
then another angel, having a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne.
these bible verses attest to the fact that those in heaven are actively involved in the prayers of the saints on earth. In revelation 5, you see the elders offering up prayers of the saints to god. In revelation 8, you see the angels doing the same. So we can either acknowledge that they're actively involved in our worship or we can ignore it. By the way, note the liturgical nature of the worship in heaven, golden censers with incense being offered up at the golden altar.
Also, the early church did venerate the saints and the martyrs, a perfect example is in the martyrdom of st polycarp of smyrna (ch 17-18), where the church of the smyrna collected his remains and honored them "more than precious stones". St polycarp was also a disciple of john so this is evidence that veneration of saints was a practice done by the apostolic church.
yes give me the links detailing the defence against the accusations on the church fathers. The only problem is that they might be written by the same orthodox believers who will be in defence of their position. Personally i tend to follow history of sabbath from secular history comparing the facts across board.
of course they were written by orthodox believers because the accusations are made against the orthodox.
Anyway, here's an
article in response to an accusation made by a scholar that Orthodox theology is Neo-Platonic.
I think on scriptures i'll leave it that god safeguarded his word. Somehow even scholarstic study of new testament alone will contradict orthodoxy on a number of issues including her disregard of the book of revelation, her interpretation of salvation by faith alone, christian walk as personified by the individual believer, and the meaning and extent of worship. It is amazing that they canonised books that can be used against them, yet left behind the books that could strengthen their doctrines as i exemplified before.
Grip, scholastic New Testament study resulted in 30,000+ church denominations, most of which are contradicting, so of course there's interpretations out there that contradict Orthodox teachings, this argument doesn't even get off the ground. Where'd you get the idea that the Orthodox church disregards the Book of Revelation? It has the strongest arguments for liturgical worship.
Do you the think the scriptures alone are sufficient enough for a person to fully live a Christian life?
If yes, then what do you with Bible verses that say that we should keep the Oral Tradition, (2 Thess 2:15, 2 Thess 3:6)
If no, then where would you get the other information and by what standard do you verify that information?
Enyewe pole for this long post, just had a lot to say. Also for some reason Mashada keeps removing all the formatting from my post, that's why most of the stuff is in lower case letters.