I had the real pleasure to meet Steve Gregg at a local Bible Study with my brother, Tom. I love an interactive study of discussion topics rather that wrote study groups that can be tiresome. Not that we (me) don’t need some wrote study groups but when I am challenged it forces me to literally go into the Bible and Christian history to seek the truth. Thank you Steve for the study group and the host for providing the comfortable home! Something did arise about the “Church” having Bishops, priests/elders (Heb/Gk) and deacons.
Other than my brother and I disagreeing, there appeared to be a consensus that a bishop was a elder/priest and visa versa. Other than the fact that you can not be a Bishop without being a priest first, I am in disagreement with any assertion of bishop & elder/priest being synonymous. Just like every Judge is an attorney, but not every attorney is a Judge … therefore, every Bishop is an elder/priest, but not every elder/priest is a Bishop.
If that is not an unrecognizable fact then I need to go to Christian history. If you do not believe in Christian History than I can assume then some do not believe in their own immediate history that they are leaving for their following generations, ie, who is it to say that what you leave behind as Christian History of your Church to be true? That being said I would like to quote one of the earliest Christians after Christ’s death/resurrection, Ignatius of Antioch.
First, remember Ignatius of Antioch (the same Antioch in Acts 15 of approx 61-62 AD ) lived from 35 – 107 AD. A Christian who died as a martyr and who wrote in defense of Christ’s human and Godly natures…Docetist heresy. Ignatius may have very lived with the Christians of Antioch/Acts 15 or within a lifetime of those who were there …. He probably heard all about Paul and Barnabus! Well, Ignatius had such a strong exposure to what the truth of Jesus and the Gospel that he died for the cause. Therefore, I think it could be assumed that his writings would fair reflection of the beliefs of these earliest Christians, especially when he wrote to the Magnesians near the time of his death. He wrote and I digest for brevity’s sake ...it is my pleasure to see you in the person of your god-inspired bishop...and in the persons of your worthy presbyters, Bassus & Apollonius...and fellow servant, the deacon, Zotion...for he is subject to the bishop as to the Grace of God and to the presbytery as to the law of Jesus Christ”.
Here, Ignatius states that in this earliest of a New Testament Christian Church there has a Bishop (episcopoi – overseer), a Presbyter (presbuteroi - elder/priest) and a Deacon (diakonoi – servant, minister). Now, unless the Church has changed/morphed and/or is allowed to hybridize with time then I should be able to assume that the New Testament Church (Forever, Visible, Truthful & Authoritative ….Mt16:18, Mt5:14-16, Acts15:22-25, 1Tim3:15, Acts15 respectively) of today should have Bishops, Priests/Elders and Deacons. Therefore, is a “church” today that is without Bishops, Priests/Elders and Deacons a “scripturally historical” church?
Christ's Peace, Steve
Bishops, Elders & Deacons
Bishops, Elders & Deacons
Last edited by Guest on Wed Dec 31, 1969 7:00 pm, edited 0 times in total.
Reason:
Reason:
Hi Steve,
There are several assumptions that you make which I am not prepared to affirm. The first is that there is a distinction between an episkopos (lit., overseer, sometimes translated, for no good reason, "bishop") and a presbuteros (lit., "old man," or "elder"). If anyone doubts that the apostles saw these terms as interchangable, this miscalculation is easily remedied:
Speaking to the elders [Gr. presbuteroi, plural of presbuteros] of the church in Ephesus, Paul exhorted:
"Take heed to yourselves and to the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers [Gr., episkopoi, the plural of episkopos]." (Acts 20:28)
(Thus Paul said that all the elders were overseers ("bishops").
Writing to the elders of the churches of Asia, Bythinia, Cappadocia and Galatia, Peter wrote:
"The elders [presbuteroi] who are among you I exhort...Shepherd the flock of God which is among you, serving as overseers [Gr. episkopoi]." (1 Peter 5:1, 2).
(Once again, affirming that all the elders are the overseers/bishops)
Paul told Titus:
"For this reason I left you in Crete, that you should...appoint elders [presbuteroi] in every city...for an overseer [episkopos] must be blameless..." (Titus 15, 7)
(Again, using elder and overseer/bishop interchangably).
It will not do to explain this evidence away by saying, "Every bishop is also a priest." It is the elders (whom you call "priests," for no obvious reason) who are also referred to as overseers (a word that you equate with "bishops"). Using your terminology, you would have to say "Every priest is a bishop." I don't think that your religion teaches this.
Another assumption of yours, with which I disagree, is the gratuitous equasion of an "elder" with a "priest." The former (meaning "an old man") is a literal translation of the Greek word presbuteros, and is a frequently-used term, in scripture, for church leaders.
By contrast, the term "priest" [Gr. hiereus] is never used in the Bible for a church leader, though it is used to describe the function of every Christian (Rev.1:6/ 5:10/ cf. 1 Peter 2:5, 9).
Some Roman Catholic Bibles have translated presbuteros as "priest" in order to lend support to the polity of the Catholic institution. However, it is obvious that this mistranslation (like many of the mistranslations in the Jehovah's Witnesses' Bible) is strictly driven by the desire to justify the practice of a religious organization, and not by a desire to be faithful to what the Greek New Testament actually teaches.
Another proof that the biblical presbuteros was in no sense the parallel to the Catholics' "parish priest" is that there were multiple presbuteroi in each church (Acts 11:29-30; 14:23; 20:17 / Philippians 1:1 / Titus 1:5 / James 5:14)...and that they had to be married men in order to qualify (1 Tim.3:2-5).
It remains an embarrassment to the Roman Catholic Church that the Bible nowhere mentions any church having a priest in it. This surely is a significant omission, in view of the number of times that church leadership and church structure are directly discussed in the New Testament.
In summary, the testimony of Paul and Peter, in their New Testament writings, is that an individual church was superintended by a body of married men, who were alternatively called "elders" or "overseers." There was no distinction between these titles, except that the former spoke of the man's age, or dignity, whereas the latter spoke of his function. No one was called a "priest," nor is there any clear reference to priestly functions being performed by the leaders of the churches. Those who wish to follow biblical practice in church structure and leadership, therefore, must look elsewhere than in the Roman Catholic, the Eastern Orthodox, and many of the Protestant denominations.
I have read all seven of Ignatius' letters and am well aware that he disagreed with both Peter and Paul in his usage of the terms presbuteros and episkopos. This does not mean that he stood against their teaching on these things, but it means that his writings reflect conditions in the church governance that had changed since the times of the apostles.
You yourself, if you are a loyal Catholic, must reject some of the teachings of the church fathers, since Papias, Polycarp, Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Irenaeus and Hippolytus were all premillennial, and the Roman Catholic doctrine is amillennial (as am I). Therefore, the Roman Catholic Church (no less than I) picks and chooses among the teachings of the early fathers, in deciding what is true and what is false in them.
If you would say that Ignatius lived too close to apostolic times to have deviated from apostolic teaching, I would simply remind you that, while Paul was still living, many of his churches deviated from his teaching. Galatia left the true gospel and embraced "another gospel" (which Paul anathematized) within weeks of Paul's departure from their midst. The church of Corinth, where Paul had ministered for 18 months, had teachers denying the doctrine of the resurrection within months of Paul's departure. Paul told Timothy that "All those [the Christians] in Asia have turned away from me" (2 Tim.1:15). It does not take long for churches to "innovate" new doctrines and polities--and the letters of Ignatius (which are believed to have been written in 110 or 115 AD) testify that this had happened in the churches to which he was writing already in his day.
You asked:
"If you do not believe in Christian History than I can assume then some do not believe in their own immediate history that they are leaving for their following generations, ie, who is it to say that what you leave behind as Christian History of your Church to be true?"
First, I do believe in Christian History--and in all history that is historically verifiable. That does not mean that I affirm every belief that some leader in Church history taught or believed. If I were to take such an approach, I would be obliged to believe in Arianism, Nestorianism and Pelagianism, since many church leaders believed these doctrines, and continued to do so even after they were officially condemned by councils.
Second, I intend to leave behind for my children the same Bible that former generations left behind for us (2 Tim.3:16-17), and the same Holy Spirit to guide them into all truth, as Jesus and the apostles taught He would do (John 16:13 / 1 John 2:27). If they take heed to these two, I am confident that I leave them to faithful instructors.
Steve, I recommend that you research the points that I have raised in this response, and see for yourself that I am correct. If you do, you will be forced to conclude that the Roman Catholic Church is not perpetuating the church structure established by the apostles. If you find this out, will you admit that this institution is a man-made organization and discontinue your loyalty to it?
There are several assumptions that you make which I am not prepared to affirm. The first is that there is a distinction between an episkopos (lit., overseer, sometimes translated, for no good reason, "bishop") and a presbuteros (lit., "old man," or "elder"). If anyone doubts that the apostles saw these terms as interchangable, this miscalculation is easily remedied:
Speaking to the elders [Gr. presbuteroi, plural of presbuteros] of the church in Ephesus, Paul exhorted:
"Take heed to yourselves and to the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers [Gr., episkopoi, the plural of episkopos]." (Acts 20:28)
(Thus Paul said that all the elders were overseers ("bishops").
Writing to the elders of the churches of Asia, Bythinia, Cappadocia and Galatia, Peter wrote:
"The elders [presbuteroi] who are among you I exhort...Shepherd the flock of God which is among you, serving as overseers [Gr. episkopoi]." (1 Peter 5:1, 2).
(Once again, affirming that all the elders are the overseers/bishops)
Paul told Titus:
"For this reason I left you in Crete, that you should...appoint elders [presbuteroi] in every city...for an overseer [episkopos] must be blameless..." (Titus 15, 7)
(Again, using elder and overseer/bishop interchangably).
It will not do to explain this evidence away by saying, "Every bishop is also a priest." It is the elders (whom you call "priests," for no obvious reason) who are also referred to as overseers (a word that you equate with "bishops"). Using your terminology, you would have to say "Every priest is a bishop." I don't think that your religion teaches this.
Another assumption of yours, with which I disagree, is the gratuitous equasion of an "elder" with a "priest." The former (meaning "an old man") is a literal translation of the Greek word presbuteros, and is a frequently-used term, in scripture, for church leaders.
By contrast, the term "priest" [Gr. hiereus] is never used in the Bible for a church leader, though it is used to describe the function of every Christian (Rev.1:6/ 5:10/ cf. 1 Peter 2:5, 9).
Some Roman Catholic Bibles have translated presbuteros as "priest" in order to lend support to the polity of the Catholic institution. However, it is obvious that this mistranslation (like many of the mistranslations in the Jehovah's Witnesses' Bible) is strictly driven by the desire to justify the practice of a religious organization, and not by a desire to be faithful to what the Greek New Testament actually teaches.
Another proof that the biblical presbuteros was in no sense the parallel to the Catholics' "parish priest" is that there were multiple presbuteroi in each church (Acts 11:29-30; 14:23; 20:17 / Philippians 1:1 / Titus 1:5 / James 5:14)...and that they had to be married men in order to qualify (1 Tim.3:2-5).
It remains an embarrassment to the Roman Catholic Church that the Bible nowhere mentions any church having a priest in it. This surely is a significant omission, in view of the number of times that church leadership and church structure are directly discussed in the New Testament.
In summary, the testimony of Paul and Peter, in their New Testament writings, is that an individual church was superintended by a body of married men, who were alternatively called "elders" or "overseers." There was no distinction between these titles, except that the former spoke of the man's age, or dignity, whereas the latter spoke of his function. No one was called a "priest," nor is there any clear reference to priestly functions being performed by the leaders of the churches. Those who wish to follow biblical practice in church structure and leadership, therefore, must look elsewhere than in the Roman Catholic, the Eastern Orthodox, and many of the Protestant denominations.
I have read all seven of Ignatius' letters and am well aware that he disagreed with both Peter and Paul in his usage of the terms presbuteros and episkopos. This does not mean that he stood against their teaching on these things, but it means that his writings reflect conditions in the church governance that had changed since the times of the apostles.
You yourself, if you are a loyal Catholic, must reject some of the teachings of the church fathers, since Papias, Polycarp, Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Irenaeus and Hippolytus were all premillennial, and the Roman Catholic doctrine is amillennial (as am I). Therefore, the Roman Catholic Church (no less than I) picks and chooses among the teachings of the early fathers, in deciding what is true and what is false in them.
If you would say that Ignatius lived too close to apostolic times to have deviated from apostolic teaching, I would simply remind you that, while Paul was still living, many of his churches deviated from his teaching. Galatia left the true gospel and embraced "another gospel" (which Paul anathematized) within weeks of Paul's departure from their midst. The church of Corinth, where Paul had ministered for 18 months, had teachers denying the doctrine of the resurrection within months of Paul's departure. Paul told Timothy that "All those [the Christians] in Asia have turned away from me" (2 Tim.1:15). It does not take long for churches to "innovate" new doctrines and polities--and the letters of Ignatius (which are believed to have been written in 110 or 115 AD) testify that this had happened in the churches to which he was writing already in his day.
You asked:
"If you do not believe in Christian History than I can assume then some do not believe in their own immediate history that they are leaving for their following generations, ie, who is it to say that what you leave behind as Christian History of your Church to be true?"
First, I do believe in Christian History--and in all history that is historically verifiable. That does not mean that I affirm every belief that some leader in Church history taught or believed. If I were to take such an approach, I would be obliged to believe in Arianism, Nestorianism and Pelagianism, since many church leaders believed these doctrines, and continued to do so even after they were officially condemned by councils.
Second, I intend to leave behind for my children the same Bible that former generations left behind for us (2 Tim.3:16-17), and the same Holy Spirit to guide them into all truth, as Jesus and the apostles taught He would do (John 16:13 / 1 John 2:27). If they take heed to these two, I am confident that I leave them to faithful instructors.
Steve, I recommend that you research the points that I have raised in this response, and see for yourself that I am correct. If you do, you will be forced to conclude that the Roman Catholic Church is not perpetuating the church structure established by the apostles. If you find this out, will you admit that this institution is a man-made organization and discontinue your loyalty to it?
Last edited by Guest on Wed Dec 31, 1969 7:00 pm, edited 0 times in total.
Reason:
Reason:
In Jesus,
Steve
Steve
Bishops, Elders & Deacons...for no good reason?
Nice reply, but maybe I (we?) will need to first look to a couple of scholastic language/word origin source books/authors. Do you have particular sources that you feel have reliability? I say that because the word Bishop appears to have a real and present origin from "episkopos". The scriptural/biblical translations from Aramaic & Greek are often not word-for-word "translations" but often "transliterations", so often Greek words (ie, episkopos) are not written "overseer" in their English translations but as "Bishop" that will occur during the evolution of words and language.
Give me some sources I can go to and then I'll bring up my sources. Maybe we have a dispute of word origins and meaning before we have a scripturally interpretation problem. Christ's Peace, Steve
Give me some sources I can go to and then I'll bring up my sources. Maybe we have a dispute of word origins and meaning before we have a scripturally interpretation problem. Christ's Peace, Steve
Last edited by Guest on Wed Dec 31, 1969 7:00 pm, edited 0 times in total.
Reason:
Reason:
Hi Steve,
My authorities on the meaning of the Greek words episkopos and presbuteros are simply the standard Greek lexicons. I personally use (1) Thayer's, (2) Vine's, (3) Bauer/Arndt and Gingrich, as well as (4) the respected ten-volume work by Gerhardt Kittel. I actually got my information on these words years ago from long-since-forgotten sources, but recently rechecked in the above-named reference works, and found that they say precisely what I said to you.
You wrote:
The scriptural/biblical translations from Aramaic & Greek are often not word-for-word "translations" but often "transliterations", so often Greek words (ie, episkopos) are not written "overseer" in their English translations but as "Bishop" that will occur during the evolution of words and language.
I did learn, from #3 (above), that the English word "priest" developed (as a result of "later Christian usage") from the transliteration of the word presbuteros--though it bears no relationship to the translation of the word. Whatever course the English language took under the influence of the Catholic Church, however, it remains the case that, in biblical Greek, the word presbuteros meant "older man," and carried no associations with the concept of priesthood.
My authorities on the meaning of the Greek words episkopos and presbuteros are simply the standard Greek lexicons. I personally use (1) Thayer's, (2) Vine's, (3) Bauer/Arndt and Gingrich, as well as (4) the respected ten-volume work by Gerhardt Kittel. I actually got my information on these words years ago from long-since-forgotten sources, but recently rechecked in the above-named reference works, and found that they say precisely what I said to you.
You wrote:
The scriptural/biblical translations from Aramaic & Greek are often not word-for-word "translations" but often "transliterations", so often Greek words (ie, episkopos) are not written "overseer" in their English translations but as "Bishop" that will occur during the evolution of words and language.
I did learn, from #3 (above), that the English word "priest" developed (as a result of "later Christian usage") from the transliteration of the word presbuteros--though it bears no relationship to the translation of the word. Whatever course the English language took under the influence of the Catholic Church, however, it remains the case that, in biblical Greek, the word presbuteros meant "older man," and carried no associations with the concept of priesthood.
Last edited by Guest on Wed Dec 31, 1969 7:00 pm, edited 0 times in total.
Reason:
Reason:
In Jesus,
Steve
Steve
Christ’s Peace,
Your comments gave me purpose to think about the multiple, what I believe are, flaws in your position. Along that line I have had to try to pull my comments together in a succinct manner to address your thoughts while still supporting mine....I have failed to do so because so much is being discussed. Your selectivity, doubts and misgivings in Christian history and the earliest Christians exemplifies the problems with the evolution of the Protestant Christian “Church” in its multiplicity of doctrine and formation of “new” pseudo-Churches.
In a way I can see your point-of-view, but do not understand your lack of submission to one authority unless that “authority” is “your opinion” about scripture. Unfortunately, scripture itself never allows “our” opinion to be “that” authority. Many will say “No, its not me, it’s the Holy Spirit”. That is also misleading because every Christian Church and pseudo-Church also claims authority with that same “Holy Spirit argument” which is contrary to scripture because there is only “One” Holy Spirit....not a thousand Holy Spirits with a thousand interpretations.
Therefore, the Protestant Christian Church will continue to hybridize and morph into the next Protestant Christian’s interpretation of scripture (and Christian history?) with the same individual authoritative validity as the preceding Protestant Christian did who also used “his Holy Spirit” to validate their beliefs. Their Protestant history will be good only for one generation, basically their history until they are dead and forgotten. It will be then that Protestant history will re-start when the next Protestant Christian takes over. This is true because no Protestant Christian today holds to the Holy Spirit scripture interpretation of Luther, Calvin, Wesley.....etc. Their interpretive authority was their history and their history was their interpretive authority....a vicious cycle.
This approach has lead many Protestants to dismiss their real Protestant Christian history and surely, all Catholic Christian history. The result is a theological vacuum that has to be re-studied and re-filled with every new Protestant generation. It leads many to deny something as simple as Bishops and Priests in the NT Church of today.
Regarding Bishops and Priests you appear to vaguely accept these words as you state “for no good reason” because the Greek and scripture is so definitive that they are synonymous. So adamant about this you also state that the Catholic Church invented (paraphrased) the use of Bishops and Priests to validate/enforce its authoritative structure. I would assume that you have consulted history books to confirm this or come to some scholastic conclusion on your own since these conclusions have never appeared in scripture. If you used history then I too, would like to use history. If you used some private scholastic insight to arrive to this conclusion then my private scholastic conclusions have the same validity, no? Basically, we both walk away being right? What word do Protestants use in lieu of “trinity” (which is Old French “trinite” which is from the Latin “trinitas”) since it is a non-scriptural word, rather a Catholic concoction, why use it at all? But, I digress so let me get back to Bishops and Priests.
There are several word origin sources but one simple one is the “Dictionary of Word Origins” which we can watch how the words bishop and priest have evolved in our modern lexicons from the old....
Episkopos (Gk overseer, epi-around skopein-look) ... Episcopus (Ltn) ... later losing the “e” = Piscopus, pronounced as Biscopus (9th Century English) .... Bishop (modern English).
Presbuteros (Gk elder, presbus-old) .... Presbyter (Ltn) ..... [Prespyterian (Old English use of the Latin for their church...church of priests)] .... Preost (Old English) ..... Priest (Modern English)
The unfortunate thing is that Protestant Christians will deny the history of word evolution. Should one deny Bishop & Priest, then they might as well deny “pastor” and “minister”, too. Pastor is Latin to mean Shepard. Minister is derived from Old French and Latin .... “Ministre” evolving to “Minister” meaning servant or attendant, one of lower status.... so why not call our Protestant Christian leaders what they argue for in the Greek .... “Elder or Servant”? Why use the Latin derivatives when Latin is adamantly denied in the etymological derivation of Bishop and Priest? It appears a bit hypocritical when you state that “priest” is used no where in the NT when one could say the same about the French or Latin usage of Pastor or Minister .
To continue, bishops (episcopoi) have the care of multiple congregations and appoint, ordain, and discipline priests and deacons. They sometimes appear to be called "evangelists" in the New Testament. Examples of first-century bishops include Timothy and Titus (1 Tim. 5:19–22; 2 Tim. 4:5; Titus 1:5).
Priests (presbuteroi) are also known as "presbyters" or "elders." In fact, the English term "priest" is simply a contraction of the Greek word presbuteros above. They have the responsibility of teaching, governing, and providing the sacraments in a given congregation (1 Tim. 5:17; Jas. 5:14–15).
Deacons (diakonoi) are the assistants of the bishops and are responsible for teaching and administering certain Church tasks, such as the distribution of food (Acts 6:1–6).
In the apostolic age, the terms for these offices were still somewhat fluid, which you illustrate in scripture and I understand. Sometimes a term would be used in a technical sense as the title for an office, sometimes not. This non-technical use of the terms even exists today, as when the term is used in many churches (both Protestant and Catholic) to refer to either ordained ministers (Latin as in “My minister visited him”) or non-ordained individuals. (In a Protestant church one might hear “He is a worship minister,” while in a Catholic church one might hear “He is an extraordinary minister of Holy Communion.”)
Thus, in the apostolic age Paul sometimes described himself as a diakonos ("servant" or "minister"; cf. 2 Cor. 3:6, 6:4, 11:23; Eph. 3:7), even though he held an office much higher than that of a deacon, that of apostle, correct?
Similarly, on one occasion Peter described himself as a "fellow elder," [1 Pet. 5:1] even though he, being an apostle, also had a much higher office than that of an ordinary elder. Every Protestant would have to acknowledge that the meeting of everyone around the “Apostles” and “Elders” (why not call them all elders?) in Acts 15 would have been slightly erroneous, ie, there is an distinction between an Apostle and an Elder ..... Oh, I can hear you know “Oh, an Apostle can be an Elder, but an Elder can not be an Apostle so it is important to note that”.... sounds like a Catholic explanation of Bishop and Priest.
The term for bishop, episcopos ("overseer"), was also fluid in meaning. Sometimes it designated the overseer of an individual congregation (the priest), sometimes the person who was the overseer of all the congregations in a city or area (the bishop or evangelist), and sometimes simply the highest-ranking clergyman in the local church—who could be an apostle (ie, Paul and Barnabus at Antioch), if one were staying there at the time.
Although the terms "bishop," "priest," and "deacon" were somewhat fluid in the apostolic age, by the beginning of the second century they had achieved the fixed form in which they are used today to designate the three offices whose functions are clearly distinct in the New Testament. It is at this point, you separate yourself from Christian history because you state that there were many “Catholic” spin-off leaders saying one thing or another. Let me state that when this happened there was usually some type of discipline applied or a council convened (Acts 15 to start) to correct that. My question to you is, can you state an early Christian (Catholic?) controversy over the title of Bishop & Priest being synonymous? The fact that you draw such a strong distinction today of their synonymous meaning would mean that the early Christians would have done the same, or at least, argued about it, no?
As the following quotations illustrate, the early Church Fathers recognized all three offices and regarded them as essential to the Church’s structure. Especially significant are the letters of Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, who traveled from his home city to Rome, where he was executed around A.D. 110. On the way he wrote letters to the churches he passed. Each of these churches possessed the same threefold ministry. Without this threefold ministry, Ignatius said, a group cannot be called a church. I feel that John Chrysostom’s Homilies on Philippians addresses many of your points of the interchangeability of Bishop and Priest, overseer and elder.
Ignatius of Antioch
"Now, therefore, it has been my privilege to see you in the person of your God-inspired bishop, Damas; and in the persons of your worthy presbyters, Bassus and Apollonius; and my fellow-servant, the deacon, Zotion. What a delight is his company! For he is subject to the bishop as to the grace of God, and to the presbytery as to the law of Jesus Christ" (Letter to the Magnesians 2 [A.D. 110]).
"Take care to do all things in harmony with God, with the bishop presiding in the place of God, and with the presbyters in the place of the council of the apostles, and with the deacons, who are most dear to me, entrusted with the business of Jesus Christ, who was with the Father from the beginning and is at last made manifest" (ibid., 6:1).
"Take care, therefore, to be confirmed in the decrees of the Lord and of the apostles, in order that in everything you do, you may prosper in body and in soul, in faith and in love, in Son and in Father and in Spirit, in beginning and in end, together with your most reverend bishop; and with that fittingly woven spiritual crown, the presbytery; and with the deacons, men of God. Be subject to the bishop and to one another as Jesus Christ was subject to the Father, and the apostles were subject to Christ and to the Father; so that there may be unity in both body and spirit" (ibid., 13:1–2).
"Indeed, when you submit to the bishop as you would to Jesus Christ, it is clear to me that you are living not in the manner of men but as Jesus Christ, who died for us, that through faith in his death you might escape dying. It is necessary, therefore—and such is your practice that you do nothing without the bishop, and that you be subject also to the presbytery, as to the apostles of Jesus Christ our hope, in whom we shall be found, if we live in him. It is necessary also that the deacons, the dispensers of the mysteries [sacraments] of Jesus Christ, be in every way pleasing to all men. For they are not the deacons of food and drink, but servants of the Church of God. They must therefore guard against blame as against fire" (Letter to the Trallians 2:1–3 [A.D. 110]).
"In like manner let everyone respect the deacons as they would respect Jesus Christ, and just as they respect the bishop as a type of the Father, and the presbyters as the council of God and college of the apostles. Without these, it cannot be called a church. I am confident that you accept this, for I have received the exemplar of your love and have it with me in the person of your bishop. His very demeanor is a great lesson and his meekness is his strength. I believe that even the godless do respect him" (ibid., 3:1–2).
"He that is within the sanctuary is pure; but he that is outside the sanctuary is not pure. In other words, anyone who acts without the bishop and the presbytery and the deacons does not have a clear conscience" (ibid., 7:2).
"I cried out while I was in your midst, I spoke with a loud voice, the voice of God: ‘Give heed to the bishop and the presbytery and the deacons.’ Some suspect me of saying this because I had previous knowledge of the division certain persons had caused; but he for whom I am in chains is my witness that I had no knowledge of this from any man. It was the Spirit who kept preaching these words, ‘Do nothing without the bishop, keep your body as the temple of God, love unity, flee from divisions, be imitators of Jesus Christ, as he was imitator of the Father’" (Letter to the Philadelphians 7:1–2 [A.D. 110]).
Clement of Alexandria
"A multitude of other pieces of advice to particular persons is written in the holy books: some for presbyters, some for bishops and deacons; and others for widows, of whom we shall have opportunity to speak elsewhere" (The Instructor of Children 3:12:97:2 [A.D. 191]).
"Even here in the Church the gradations of bishops, presbyters, and deacons happen to be imitations, in my opinion, of the angelic glory and of that arrangement which, the scriptures say, awaits those who have followed in the footsteps of the apostles and who have lived in complete righteousness according to the gospel" (Miscellanies 6:13:107:2 [A.D. 208]).
Hippolytus
"When a deacon is to be ordained, he is chosen after the fashion of those things said above, the bishop alone in like manner imposing his hands upon him as we have prescribed. In the ordaining of a deacon, this is the reason why the bishop alone is to impose his hands upon him: he is not ordained to the priesthood, but to serve the bishop and to fulfill the bishop’s command. He has no part in the council of the clergy, but is to attend to his own duties and is to acquaint the bishop with such matters as are needful. . . .
"On a presbyter, however, let the presbyters impose their hands because of the common and like Spirit of the clergy. Even so, the presbyter has only the power to receive [the Spirit], and not the power to give [the Spirit]. That is why a presbyter does not ordain the clergy; for at the ordaining of a presbyter, he but seals while the bishop ordains.
"Over a deacon, then, let the bishop speak thus: ‘O God, who have created all things and have set them in order through your Word; Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, whom you sent to minister to your will and to make clear to us your desires, grant the Holy Spirit of grace and care and diligence to this your servant, whom you have chosen to serve the Church and to offer in your holy places the gifts which are offered to you by your chosen high priests, so that he may serve with a pure heart and without blame, and that, ever giving praise to you, he may be accounted by your good will as worthy of this high office: through your Son Jesus Christ, through whom be glory and honor to you, to the Father and the Son with the Holy Spirit, in your holy Church, both now and through the ages of ages. Amen’" (The Apostolic Tradition 9 [A.D. 215]).
Origen
"Not fornication only, but even marriages make us unfit for ecclesiastical honors; for neither a bishop, nor a presbyter, nor a deacon, nor a widow is able to be twice married" (Homilies on Luke 17 [A.D. 234]).
Council of Elvira
"Bishops, presbyters, and deacons may not leave their own places for the sake of commerce, nor are they to be traveling about the provinces, frequenting the markets for their own profit. Certainly for the procuring of their own necessities they can send a boy or a freedman or a hireling or a friend or whomever, but, if they wish to engage in business, let them do so within the province" (Canon 18 [A.D. 300]).
Council of Nicaea I
"It has come to the knowledge of the holy and great synod that, in some districts and cities, the deacons administer the Eucharist to the presbyters, whereas neither canon nor custom permits that they who have no right to offer [the Eucharistic sacrifice] should give the Body of Christ to them that do offer [it]. And this also has been made known, that certain deacons now touch the Eucharist even before the bishops. Let all such practices be utterly done away, and let the deacons remain within their own bounds, knowing that they are the ministers of the bishop and the inferiors of the presbyters. Let them receive the Eucharist according to their order, after the presbyters, and let either the bishop or the presbyter administer to them" (Canon 18 [A.D. 325]).
John Chrysostom
"[In Philippians 1:1 Paul says,] ‘To the co-bishops and deacons.’ What does this mean? Were there plural bishops of some city? Certainly not! It is the presbyters that [Paul] calls by this title; for these titles were then interchangeable, and the bishop is even called a deacon. That is why, when writing to Timothy, he says, ‘Fulfill your diaconate’ [2 Tim. 4:5], although Timothy was then a bishop. That he was in fact a bishop is clear when Paul says to him, ‘Lay hands on no man lightly’ [1 Tim. 5:22], and again, ‘Which was given you with the laying on of hands of the presbytery’ [1 Tim. 4:14], and presbyters would not have ordained a bishop" (Homilies on Philippians 1:1 [A.D. 402]).
Regardless, you will quickly deny these and other Christians of the earliest times because some had different opinions about theology. You have no authority other than yourself (and what you say is the Holy Spirit speaking to you), yet in the same breath deny any other Christians (those above) that uses the same Holy Spirit to validate their theological opinion. Again, this sounds almost exactly like Acts 15. A theological question. Many, many Christians all bestowed with the Holy Spirit and two of them are Scriptural Apostles, still they submit to the mandate of a Council of Elders and Apostles. This is a perfect example of the earliest scriptural NT Church .... believing Christians (communal church) and an authoritative body of Christians (Elders and Apostles) along with a problem that was resolved by the authoritative body (not using individualistic opinions). But, as I remember you said that this NT Church was different because they had the Apostles there and now we don’t so that NT Church does not apply to us today....I paraphrase but it was something of this nature. Basically, the church hybridized or morphed into what we have today ..... millions of small churches and no earthly authoritative Church.
You even state “...while Paul was still living, many of his churches deviated from his teaching. Galatia left the true gospel and embraced "another gospel" (which Paul anathematized) within weeks of Paul's departure from their midst. The church of Corinth, where Paul had ministered for 18 months, had teachers denying the doctrine of the resurrection within months of Paul's departure. Paul told Timothy that "All those [the Christians] in Asia have turned away from me...”, ....but you did not go on with this observation.
What happened with these Galatians? The Corinthians? Those in Asia and those at Antioch? Were they allowed to continue such averse preaching of the truth, scripture and the Gospel? No, of course not. Do you really think that God would leave today’s Christians alone without an authority that He, no doubt, left with the first Christians? How can a non-original Apostle (Paul...#13 or 14 depending on Barnabus) have the mandated authority to “anathemize” (ecclesiastical ban, curse or excommunicate, Webster’s) without having the backing of some authority Church? Heck, he looked for that authority in Acts 15. You are answering your own questions with sheer logic. For God to leave a Church on earth to chaos is hardly Christ-like.
For some odd reason, you will accept this huge evolutionary change in the yesteryear NT Church (with authority) compared today’s NT Church (no authority) yet not accept the simplest of any possible evolutionary change in the yesteryear words “overseer” or “elder” to mean “Bishop” or “Priest” of today.
Your comments gave me purpose to think about the multiple, what I believe are, flaws in your position. Along that line I have had to try to pull my comments together in a succinct manner to address your thoughts while still supporting mine....I have failed to do so because so much is being discussed. Your selectivity, doubts and misgivings in Christian history and the earliest Christians exemplifies the problems with the evolution of the Protestant Christian “Church” in its multiplicity of doctrine and formation of “new” pseudo-Churches.
In a way I can see your point-of-view, but do not understand your lack of submission to one authority unless that “authority” is “your opinion” about scripture. Unfortunately, scripture itself never allows “our” opinion to be “that” authority. Many will say “No, its not me, it’s the Holy Spirit”. That is also misleading because every Christian Church and pseudo-Church also claims authority with that same “Holy Spirit argument” which is contrary to scripture because there is only “One” Holy Spirit....not a thousand Holy Spirits with a thousand interpretations.
Therefore, the Protestant Christian Church will continue to hybridize and morph into the next Protestant Christian’s interpretation of scripture (and Christian history?) with the same individual authoritative validity as the preceding Protestant Christian did who also used “his Holy Spirit” to validate their beliefs. Their Protestant history will be good only for one generation, basically their history until they are dead and forgotten. It will be then that Protestant history will re-start when the next Protestant Christian takes over. This is true because no Protestant Christian today holds to the Holy Spirit scripture interpretation of Luther, Calvin, Wesley.....etc. Their interpretive authority was their history and their history was their interpretive authority....a vicious cycle.
This approach has lead many Protestants to dismiss their real Protestant Christian history and surely, all Catholic Christian history. The result is a theological vacuum that has to be re-studied and re-filled with every new Protestant generation. It leads many to deny something as simple as Bishops and Priests in the NT Church of today.
Regarding Bishops and Priests you appear to vaguely accept these words as you state “for no good reason” because the Greek and scripture is so definitive that they are synonymous. So adamant about this you also state that the Catholic Church invented (paraphrased) the use of Bishops and Priests to validate/enforce its authoritative structure. I would assume that you have consulted history books to confirm this or come to some scholastic conclusion on your own since these conclusions have never appeared in scripture. If you used history then I too, would like to use history. If you used some private scholastic insight to arrive to this conclusion then my private scholastic conclusions have the same validity, no? Basically, we both walk away being right? What word do Protestants use in lieu of “trinity” (which is Old French “trinite” which is from the Latin “trinitas”) since it is a non-scriptural word, rather a Catholic concoction, why use it at all? But, I digress so let me get back to Bishops and Priests.
There are several word origin sources but one simple one is the “Dictionary of Word Origins” which we can watch how the words bishop and priest have evolved in our modern lexicons from the old....
Episkopos (Gk overseer, epi-around skopein-look) ... Episcopus (Ltn) ... later losing the “e” = Piscopus, pronounced as Biscopus (9th Century English) .... Bishop (modern English).
Presbuteros (Gk elder, presbus-old) .... Presbyter (Ltn) ..... [Prespyterian (Old English use of the Latin for their church...church of priests)] .... Preost (Old English) ..... Priest (Modern English)
The unfortunate thing is that Protestant Christians will deny the history of word evolution. Should one deny Bishop & Priest, then they might as well deny “pastor” and “minister”, too. Pastor is Latin to mean Shepard. Minister is derived from Old French and Latin .... “Ministre” evolving to “Minister” meaning servant or attendant, one of lower status.... so why not call our Protestant Christian leaders what they argue for in the Greek .... “Elder or Servant”? Why use the Latin derivatives when Latin is adamantly denied in the etymological derivation of Bishop and Priest? It appears a bit hypocritical when you state that “priest” is used no where in the NT when one could say the same about the French or Latin usage of Pastor or Minister .
To continue, bishops (episcopoi) have the care of multiple congregations and appoint, ordain, and discipline priests and deacons. They sometimes appear to be called "evangelists" in the New Testament. Examples of first-century bishops include Timothy and Titus (1 Tim. 5:19–22; 2 Tim. 4:5; Titus 1:5).
Priests (presbuteroi) are also known as "presbyters" or "elders." In fact, the English term "priest" is simply a contraction of the Greek word presbuteros above. They have the responsibility of teaching, governing, and providing the sacraments in a given congregation (1 Tim. 5:17; Jas. 5:14–15).
Deacons (diakonoi) are the assistants of the bishops and are responsible for teaching and administering certain Church tasks, such as the distribution of food (Acts 6:1–6).
In the apostolic age, the terms for these offices were still somewhat fluid, which you illustrate in scripture and I understand. Sometimes a term would be used in a technical sense as the title for an office, sometimes not. This non-technical use of the terms even exists today, as when the term is used in many churches (both Protestant and Catholic) to refer to either ordained ministers (Latin as in “My minister visited him”) or non-ordained individuals. (In a Protestant church one might hear “He is a worship minister,” while in a Catholic church one might hear “He is an extraordinary minister of Holy Communion.”)
Thus, in the apostolic age Paul sometimes described himself as a diakonos ("servant" or "minister"; cf. 2 Cor. 3:6, 6:4, 11:23; Eph. 3:7), even though he held an office much higher than that of a deacon, that of apostle, correct?
Similarly, on one occasion Peter described himself as a "fellow elder," [1 Pet. 5:1] even though he, being an apostle, also had a much higher office than that of an ordinary elder. Every Protestant would have to acknowledge that the meeting of everyone around the “Apostles” and “Elders” (why not call them all elders?) in Acts 15 would have been slightly erroneous, ie, there is an distinction between an Apostle and an Elder ..... Oh, I can hear you know “Oh, an Apostle can be an Elder, but an Elder can not be an Apostle so it is important to note that”.... sounds like a Catholic explanation of Bishop and Priest.
The term for bishop, episcopos ("overseer"), was also fluid in meaning. Sometimes it designated the overseer of an individual congregation (the priest), sometimes the person who was the overseer of all the congregations in a city or area (the bishop or evangelist), and sometimes simply the highest-ranking clergyman in the local church—who could be an apostle (ie, Paul and Barnabus at Antioch), if one were staying there at the time.
Although the terms "bishop," "priest," and "deacon" were somewhat fluid in the apostolic age, by the beginning of the second century they had achieved the fixed form in which they are used today to designate the three offices whose functions are clearly distinct in the New Testament. It is at this point, you separate yourself from Christian history because you state that there were many “Catholic” spin-off leaders saying one thing or another. Let me state that when this happened there was usually some type of discipline applied or a council convened (Acts 15 to start) to correct that. My question to you is, can you state an early Christian (Catholic?) controversy over the title of Bishop & Priest being synonymous? The fact that you draw such a strong distinction today of their synonymous meaning would mean that the early Christians would have done the same, or at least, argued about it, no?
As the following quotations illustrate, the early Church Fathers recognized all three offices and regarded them as essential to the Church’s structure. Especially significant are the letters of Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, who traveled from his home city to Rome, where he was executed around A.D. 110. On the way he wrote letters to the churches he passed. Each of these churches possessed the same threefold ministry. Without this threefold ministry, Ignatius said, a group cannot be called a church. I feel that John Chrysostom’s Homilies on Philippians addresses many of your points of the interchangeability of Bishop and Priest, overseer and elder.
Ignatius of Antioch
"Now, therefore, it has been my privilege to see you in the person of your God-inspired bishop, Damas; and in the persons of your worthy presbyters, Bassus and Apollonius; and my fellow-servant, the deacon, Zotion. What a delight is his company! For he is subject to the bishop as to the grace of God, and to the presbytery as to the law of Jesus Christ" (Letter to the Magnesians 2 [A.D. 110]).
"Take care to do all things in harmony with God, with the bishop presiding in the place of God, and with the presbyters in the place of the council of the apostles, and with the deacons, who are most dear to me, entrusted with the business of Jesus Christ, who was with the Father from the beginning and is at last made manifest" (ibid., 6:1).
"Take care, therefore, to be confirmed in the decrees of the Lord and of the apostles, in order that in everything you do, you may prosper in body and in soul, in faith and in love, in Son and in Father and in Spirit, in beginning and in end, together with your most reverend bishop; and with that fittingly woven spiritual crown, the presbytery; and with the deacons, men of God. Be subject to the bishop and to one another as Jesus Christ was subject to the Father, and the apostles were subject to Christ and to the Father; so that there may be unity in both body and spirit" (ibid., 13:1–2).
"Indeed, when you submit to the bishop as you would to Jesus Christ, it is clear to me that you are living not in the manner of men but as Jesus Christ, who died for us, that through faith in his death you might escape dying. It is necessary, therefore—and such is your practice that you do nothing without the bishop, and that you be subject also to the presbytery, as to the apostles of Jesus Christ our hope, in whom we shall be found, if we live in him. It is necessary also that the deacons, the dispensers of the mysteries [sacraments] of Jesus Christ, be in every way pleasing to all men. For they are not the deacons of food and drink, but servants of the Church of God. They must therefore guard against blame as against fire" (Letter to the Trallians 2:1–3 [A.D. 110]).
"In like manner let everyone respect the deacons as they would respect Jesus Christ, and just as they respect the bishop as a type of the Father, and the presbyters as the council of God and college of the apostles. Without these, it cannot be called a church. I am confident that you accept this, for I have received the exemplar of your love and have it with me in the person of your bishop. His very demeanor is a great lesson and his meekness is his strength. I believe that even the godless do respect him" (ibid., 3:1–2).
"He that is within the sanctuary is pure; but he that is outside the sanctuary is not pure. In other words, anyone who acts without the bishop and the presbytery and the deacons does not have a clear conscience" (ibid., 7:2).
"I cried out while I was in your midst, I spoke with a loud voice, the voice of God: ‘Give heed to the bishop and the presbytery and the deacons.’ Some suspect me of saying this because I had previous knowledge of the division certain persons had caused; but he for whom I am in chains is my witness that I had no knowledge of this from any man. It was the Spirit who kept preaching these words, ‘Do nothing without the bishop, keep your body as the temple of God, love unity, flee from divisions, be imitators of Jesus Christ, as he was imitator of the Father’" (Letter to the Philadelphians 7:1–2 [A.D. 110]).
Clement of Alexandria
"A multitude of other pieces of advice to particular persons is written in the holy books: some for presbyters, some for bishops and deacons; and others for widows, of whom we shall have opportunity to speak elsewhere" (The Instructor of Children 3:12:97:2 [A.D. 191]).
"Even here in the Church the gradations of bishops, presbyters, and deacons happen to be imitations, in my opinion, of the angelic glory and of that arrangement which, the scriptures say, awaits those who have followed in the footsteps of the apostles and who have lived in complete righteousness according to the gospel" (Miscellanies 6:13:107:2 [A.D. 208]).
Hippolytus
"When a deacon is to be ordained, he is chosen after the fashion of those things said above, the bishop alone in like manner imposing his hands upon him as we have prescribed. In the ordaining of a deacon, this is the reason why the bishop alone is to impose his hands upon him: he is not ordained to the priesthood, but to serve the bishop and to fulfill the bishop’s command. He has no part in the council of the clergy, but is to attend to his own duties and is to acquaint the bishop with such matters as are needful. . . .
"On a presbyter, however, let the presbyters impose their hands because of the common and like Spirit of the clergy. Even so, the presbyter has only the power to receive [the Spirit], and not the power to give [the Spirit]. That is why a presbyter does not ordain the clergy; for at the ordaining of a presbyter, he but seals while the bishop ordains.
"Over a deacon, then, let the bishop speak thus: ‘O God, who have created all things and have set them in order through your Word; Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, whom you sent to minister to your will and to make clear to us your desires, grant the Holy Spirit of grace and care and diligence to this your servant, whom you have chosen to serve the Church and to offer in your holy places the gifts which are offered to you by your chosen high priests, so that he may serve with a pure heart and without blame, and that, ever giving praise to you, he may be accounted by your good will as worthy of this high office: through your Son Jesus Christ, through whom be glory and honor to you, to the Father and the Son with the Holy Spirit, in your holy Church, both now and through the ages of ages. Amen’" (The Apostolic Tradition 9 [A.D. 215]).
Origen
"Not fornication only, but even marriages make us unfit for ecclesiastical honors; for neither a bishop, nor a presbyter, nor a deacon, nor a widow is able to be twice married" (Homilies on Luke 17 [A.D. 234]).
Council of Elvira
"Bishops, presbyters, and deacons may not leave their own places for the sake of commerce, nor are they to be traveling about the provinces, frequenting the markets for their own profit. Certainly for the procuring of their own necessities they can send a boy or a freedman or a hireling or a friend or whomever, but, if they wish to engage in business, let them do so within the province" (Canon 18 [A.D. 300]).
Council of Nicaea I
"It has come to the knowledge of the holy and great synod that, in some districts and cities, the deacons administer the Eucharist to the presbyters, whereas neither canon nor custom permits that they who have no right to offer [the Eucharistic sacrifice] should give the Body of Christ to them that do offer [it]. And this also has been made known, that certain deacons now touch the Eucharist even before the bishops. Let all such practices be utterly done away, and let the deacons remain within their own bounds, knowing that they are the ministers of the bishop and the inferiors of the presbyters. Let them receive the Eucharist according to their order, after the presbyters, and let either the bishop or the presbyter administer to them" (Canon 18 [A.D. 325]).
John Chrysostom
"[In Philippians 1:1 Paul says,] ‘To the co-bishops and deacons.’ What does this mean? Were there plural bishops of some city? Certainly not! It is the presbyters that [Paul] calls by this title; for these titles were then interchangeable, and the bishop is even called a deacon. That is why, when writing to Timothy, he says, ‘Fulfill your diaconate’ [2 Tim. 4:5], although Timothy was then a bishop. That he was in fact a bishop is clear when Paul says to him, ‘Lay hands on no man lightly’ [1 Tim. 5:22], and again, ‘Which was given you with the laying on of hands of the presbytery’ [1 Tim. 4:14], and presbyters would not have ordained a bishop" (Homilies on Philippians 1:1 [A.D. 402]).
Regardless, you will quickly deny these and other Christians of the earliest times because some had different opinions about theology. You have no authority other than yourself (and what you say is the Holy Spirit speaking to you), yet in the same breath deny any other Christians (those above) that uses the same Holy Spirit to validate their theological opinion. Again, this sounds almost exactly like Acts 15. A theological question. Many, many Christians all bestowed with the Holy Spirit and two of them are Scriptural Apostles, still they submit to the mandate of a Council of Elders and Apostles. This is a perfect example of the earliest scriptural NT Church .... believing Christians (communal church) and an authoritative body of Christians (Elders and Apostles) along with a problem that was resolved by the authoritative body (not using individualistic opinions). But, as I remember you said that this NT Church was different because they had the Apostles there and now we don’t so that NT Church does not apply to us today....I paraphrase but it was something of this nature. Basically, the church hybridized or morphed into what we have today ..... millions of small churches and no earthly authoritative Church.
You even state “...while Paul was still living, many of his churches deviated from his teaching. Galatia left the true gospel and embraced "another gospel" (which Paul anathematized) within weeks of Paul's departure from their midst. The church of Corinth, where Paul had ministered for 18 months, had teachers denying the doctrine of the resurrection within months of Paul's departure. Paul told Timothy that "All those [the Christians] in Asia have turned away from me...”, ....but you did not go on with this observation.
What happened with these Galatians? The Corinthians? Those in Asia and those at Antioch? Were they allowed to continue such averse preaching of the truth, scripture and the Gospel? No, of course not. Do you really think that God would leave today’s Christians alone without an authority that He, no doubt, left with the first Christians? How can a non-original Apostle (Paul...#13 or 14 depending on Barnabus) have the mandated authority to “anathemize” (ecclesiastical ban, curse or excommunicate, Webster’s) without having the backing of some authority Church? Heck, he looked for that authority in Acts 15. You are answering your own questions with sheer logic. For God to leave a Church on earth to chaos is hardly Christ-like.
For some odd reason, you will accept this huge evolutionary change in the yesteryear NT Church (with authority) compared today’s NT Church (no authority) yet not accept the simplest of any possible evolutionary change in the yesteryear words “overseer” or “elder” to mean “Bishop” or “Priest” of today.
Last edited by Guest on Wed Dec 31, 1969 7:00 pm, edited 0 times in total.
Reason:
Reason:
Dentist vs Bishop/Priest/Deacon
Since no one has approached my last entry about the Christian Church having a distinct Bishop, Priest/Elder and Deacon I would like to approach it from another angle.
It appears that the verbiage of Bishop, Priest/Elder and Deacon is scripturally synonymous from the Protestant perspective which creates a problem for me. Since Paul is making many of the references to such verbiage it appears out-of-wack to be going into three different names for the same function (elder, overseer, minister) especially in his lifetime.
I am a dentist and unless something happens to me I will be a dentist for the rest of my life. During my lifetime, why not give me three titles for my occupation rather than one? Simply because it would be crazy to start calling me a dentist or an odontologist or a masticatory specialist, etc, because everyone would be confused. If you are an architect, a pilot or a gardener do you start calling yourself something else just for the heck of it.
Well, here is God's Word and Paul is talking about and describing the duties of church leaders. Do you think God would want to make that leadership point confusing for the flock to be sheparded so they would deal with three different labels during one man's (Paul) lifetime? It appears that this thought process appears to be a bit askew.
If it is OK for scripture to be that confusing for our church leadership that will assist us in our spiritual lives to either a perpetual heaven or hell, then I assume it would be OK to be that cavalier in today's professional titles. So next time you are getting off a plane turn to the "pilot" and say "Hey, aeronautical taxi driver, great flight". See where that will get you.
You see it is simple to figure that out, too. Go to the historical word entomology of "pilot" and you will see a natural progress of this word evolution and not insult him/her by telling them they are an aeronautical taxi driver.
Pilot comes from the Gk word for oar "pedon", "peda" (plural for rudder) and "pedotes" (helmsman). Later, in Latin it evolved into "pedota" and later evolved into "pilotus" which later the French and English used "pilot" in connection for piloting ships. This word application was used for those who piloted balloons and later in 1907 "pilot" was used in the modern use of "flier of an aeroplane".
Go back and look at the word entomology for Bishop, Priest and Deacon and you will see that there are such Church leader offices.
Christ's Peace. Catholic Steve, your friendly odontologist
It appears that the verbiage of Bishop, Priest/Elder and Deacon is scripturally synonymous from the Protestant perspective which creates a problem for me. Since Paul is making many of the references to such verbiage it appears out-of-wack to be going into three different names for the same function (elder, overseer, minister) especially in his lifetime.
I am a dentist and unless something happens to me I will be a dentist for the rest of my life. During my lifetime, why not give me three titles for my occupation rather than one? Simply because it would be crazy to start calling me a dentist or an odontologist or a masticatory specialist, etc, because everyone would be confused. If you are an architect, a pilot or a gardener do you start calling yourself something else just for the heck of it.
Well, here is God's Word and Paul is talking about and describing the duties of church leaders. Do you think God would want to make that leadership point confusing for the flock to be sheparded so they would deal with three different labels during one man's (Paul) lifetime? It appears that this thought process appears to be a bit askew.
If it is OK for scripture to be that confusing for our church leadership that will assist us in our spiritual lives to either a perpetual heaven or hell, then I assume it would be OK to be that cavalier in today's professional titles. So next time you are getting off a plane turn to the "pilot" and say "Hey, aeronautical taxi driver, great flight". See where that will get you.
You see it is simple to figure that out, too. Go to the historical word entomology of "pilot" and you will see a natural progress of this word evolution and not insult him/her by telling them they are an aeronautical taxi driver.
Pilot comes from the Gk word for oar "pedon", "peda" (plural for rudder) and "pedotes" (helmsman). Later, in Latin it evolved into "pedota" and later evolved into "pilotus" which later the French and English used "pilot" in connection for piloting ships. This word application was used for those who piloted balloons and later in 1907 "pilot" was used in the modern use of "flier of an aeroplane".
Go back and look at the word entomology for Bishop, Priest and Deacon and you will see that there are such Church leader offices.
Christ's Peace. Catholic Steve, your friendly odontologist
Last edited by Guest on Wed Dec 31, 1969 7:00 pm, edited 0 times in total.
Reason:
Reason:
CatholicSteve,
You wrote:
You wrote:
Policeman is an important position, no? What about policeman, cop, peace officer, patrolman, etc. Do you not readily recognize they all might refer to the same person? Have you never used more than one for an officer of the law (there's another one for you)?I am a dentist and unless something happens to me I will be a dentist for the rest of my life. During my lifetime, why not give me three titles for my occupation rather than one? Simply because it would be crazy to start calling me a dentist or an odontologist or a masticatory specialist, etc, because everyone would be confused. If you are an architect, a pilot or a gardener do you start calling yourself something else just for the heck of it.
Well, here is God's Word and Paul is talking about and describing the duties of church leaders. Do you think God would want to make that leadership point confusing for the flock to be sheparded so they would deal with three different labels during one man's (Paul) lifetime? It appears that this thought process appears to be a bit askew.
Last edited by Guest on Wed Dec 31, 1969 7:00 pm, edited 0 times in total.
Reason:
Reason:
A Berean
I think the point is that you admit there is a difference in how the terms were used in the NT and how they later became used and understood by the ECF's you cite. My question is, who's more correct? The writers of the NT and their use of these terms or the later church fathers? Who carries more weight?CatholicSteve wrote:In the apostolic age, the terms for these offices were still somewhat fluid, which you illustrate in scripture and I understand. Sometimes a term would be used in a technical sense as the title for an office, sometimes not...
Although the terms "bishop," "priest," and "deacon" were somewhat fluid in the apostolic age, by the beginning of the second century they had achieved the fixed form in which they are used today to designate the three offices whose functions are clearly distinct in the New Testament. It is at this point, you separate yourself from Christian history because you state that there were many “Catholic” spin-off leaders saying one thing or another.
And the church later used this "understanding" to condemn anyone who didn't accept their later interpretations and commands, saying they would be put out of the "church" under penalty of death. How may people were later slaughtered because they wouldn't obey the holy roman empire?CatholicSteve wrote: As the following quotations illustrate, the early Church Fathers recognized all three offices and regarded them as essential to the Church’s structure. Especially significant are the letters of Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, who traveled from his home city to Rome, where he was executed around A.D. 110. On the way he wrote letters to the churches he passed. Each of these churches possessed the same threefold ministry. Without this threefold ministry, Ignatius said, a group cannot be called a church.
John makes this interesting comment:
3Jo 1:9 I have written something to the church, but Diotrephes, who likes to put himself first, does not acknowledge our authority.
3Jo 1:10 So if I come, I will bring up what he is doing, talking wicked nonsense against us. And not content with that, he refuses to welcome the brothers, and also stops those who want to and puts them out of the church.
3 John 1:11 Beloved, do not imitate evil but imitate good. Whoever does good is from God; whoever does evil has not seen God.
When someone would bring up the written authority of the apostles like Jesus, Paul, John, Peter etc. they were thrown out of the church and many were killed because they would not submit to the Pope (Instead of Christ).
How do I judge the actions of the early roman catholic church AND the actions of protestant curches? The same way John judges in 3 John 1:11 & 1 John 3:14-15.
Is this not what Luther did? How was he treated? And those who came before him?
This seems to be a result of the church institutionalizing itself in a way that goes beyond the apostles own explaination. This later man made understanding was defeneded to the death for many many years.
The parallels between the way the Jews acted once the had the mozaic covenant and the way the visible church acted for many hundreds of years is striking. Both of them thought they were doing God's will.
Last edited by Guest on Wed Dec 31, 1969 7:00 pm, edited 0 times in total.
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Reason:
By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. (John 13:35)
Officer Homer & Historical Sean
Dear Homer and Sean,
Christ's Peace. Homer first. No. When I have been pulled over. It has been "OFFICER, what did I do wrong?". I do not say "Policeman, what did I do wrong".
When I refer to a officer of the law, it will be 90% of the time referred to as THE "police". When there was reason for specificity like my wife saying "where'd you get the ticket, I'd say "On the highway by some CHP (Calif Hwy patrol) who caught me doing 80"
The title "police" generically covers all police officers and then there are titles to their actual positions, ie, CHP, FBI, NSI, Deputy Sheriff..etc. You state that there are multiple names for the same position "... policeman, cop, peace officer, patrolman, etc.". There is also copper, flatfoot, fuz , etc, but as I am sure you would consider these a pejorative, as do I. I have several police friends and associates who take cop and patrolman as a pejorative because they state "I am a deputy sheriff, not a patrolman". They will relate this to others names, as well. Therefore, I am not entirely sold on your title differentiation.
I say this because you can also carry this logic to your family "physician", but you call him/her "Dr. so and so", not "healer", "teacher", not hey "Mr. ENT", "Mr. Cardiologist". They are "doctors". From DOCTOR you have a hierarchy of titles in the areas of specialties. When I meet a Bishop, or even the Pope (Papa- Ltn...father), I can call him properly by his barest of titles "Father so and so", but if you remember scripture we are to also give "double honor" (1 Tim 5:17) to the elders/priests of the church.
1 Timothy 5:17 " The elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honor, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching.
That being the case, I might precede with specific title of Monsignor, Cardinal, etc. But see, your problem as a Protestant (I assume?) is that you will not accept a hierarchy in the church even though the earliest history outside scripture speaks volumes otherwise. You will forsake Christian history until 1517 and even then, you will accept only that which supports your position.
If you read my earlier post you will have every PROTESTANT arguing that Bishop and Priest are not in scripture! That being said, will you (Protestants) hold to the same standard when you also can not find the word pastor and minister there? I told you these words have Latin and Anglo-Saxon roots... they are not in scripture. I will admit that "prebuterous" is there. Why not call out to your church leader next Sunday "Hey, Prebuterous Johnson, good sermon!" You would not even go so far as to start calling him "ELDER so and so". Why not, it's in SCRIPTURE? No, you will rely on word entomology evolution only to the point of pastor or minister, because you live a modern/evolved society that does not call their Church leaders "ELDER" anymore. I do the same but I also accept the Latin and the English entomology evolution from "prebuterous" to "priest" that is scholarly there but others do not accept because it would "too Catholic". Now that position, I understand.
Protestants accept that which is convenient in Church history but nothing more. Case in point...Christmas and Easter. Christmas stands for "Christ's Mass". It is kind of a Catholic thing and has also gone through some word evolution but since most Protestants do not accept any word entomology then it seems that they don't care. "Mass" comes from the Latin "Missa" that came from the Latin after the Mass was completed the Priest would say "Ite, missa est". This literally means "Go, it is the dismissal" which is "Go and spread the Good News" something the priest says at the end of ever Mass. But, it doesn't matter to Protestants because they will participate in this very Catholic HOLY DAY ("holiday "... oh no, another word evolution), this very Catholic Mass because they have no CHRISTMAS. Christmas was declared by Catholic Pope Julius 349AD (oh no, history again) when he wanted to get the pagans away from honoring their God Mithras which was on Dec 25 (there is absolutely no evidence of Dec 25 being Christ's birth, but completely otherwise if you look at other scriptural inferences). Look at what Paul commanded in 1 Cor 9:19 and you'll see Pope Julius was doing the same and was very successful. But you know what, we Catholic Christians would love to have the Protestant Christians honor Christ's birth on a date Catholics declared until you come up with your own Holy Day.
Do you want me to go into Easter? I don't think so because Easter date, title and fertility origins are so completely non-scriptural, non-Protestant that it makes me cry when you make such a big deal about simple words as Bishop and Priest. Protestants will sacrifice their same standard of logic and argument they use to fight Bishop/Priest but in the same breath throw out that very standard/logic when arguing huge historical, non-scriptural words and basis for Christmas and Easter that they can not possibly give up. Go figure.
Now, after attending Oral Roberts University for four years and attending the Evangelical Church of the Vineyard Ministries and Horizon Christian Fellowship for almost 14 years why I left for the Catholic Christian Church. Now, Sean are you still there?
Sean, if I plant an oak acorn in the ground today and come back 100 years later and find this oak acorn had grown to this huge 100 foot tree, is it not still an oak tree whether it started as a seed seed acorn and continues to grow? Of course, it's the same oak with the same generic code it started with as a seed but now it has different appearances. It is huge. It has leaves, it provides shade and shelter for animals with roots that go into the ground as tall as the tree...etc. The Church started with the NT acorn seed of 12 Apostles and today is now the Church 2000+ years older but it is huge both visually and with historical roots to boot. It provides shelter and shade for the impoverished both in spirit and in the flesh. Is the Church perfect? No, and scripture does not promise that from even the leaders down into the followers. What remains constant is the generic code that there is ONE WORD, ONE SPIRIT until the end of time. Protestants think there are thousands of spirits because the proof is in the thousands of pastors/ministers who continue to interpret/twist Scripture to their own destruction by starting new church's that believe in their certain interpretation. If that were not true then why the thousands of different Protestant doctrines that continue to "protest" even from within. Protestants stopped arguing with Catholics in the late 1500's (more History, oh drat) and started arguing with themselves, ie, Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Wesley , King James..etc, etc. I know this to be true because I was the member of two Protestant churches that had spin-off churches because the senior and associate pastors did not agree on certain Scripture interpretations.
If you, Sean, truly believed in the rhetorical statement you made "My question is, who's more correct? The writers of the NT and their use of these terms or the later church fathers? Who carries more weight?". Let Socratic question come back to you ... " If you believe the NT authors, then why like Homer, do you not call your church leaders Elder from now on and even correct him when he says it is Pastor or Minister by telling that such words are not found in Scripture?" But, you won't. You will find it too convenient to call them Pastor or Minister while you continue to attend non-Scriptural and very Catholic Holy Days like Christmas and Easter.
The fascinating thing about Protestants is that they will only use history when it puts down Catholics or supports generic Christianity. When history is used by Catholic Christians it is always untrue. I cite the recent arguments of Protestant Christians when they want to defend Christianity against those that believed the recent movie "DiVinci Code". You can find all sorts of Protestant books citing this Church Father and that Church Father as proof text that Christ was not married, etc, but when I use the same Church Father as proof text for Catholic Christian Doctrine I get the big "oh no!, you can't do that".
Another post, but I'd love to discuss your statement "When someone would bring up the written authority of the apostles like Jesus, Paul, John, Peter etc. they were thrown out of the church and many were killed because they would not submit to the Pope (Instead of Christ)." I hate to do this to you because it will force you to cite from some historical document so I can check it out.
You also state "Is this not what Luther did? How was he treated?" Are I ask, have you studied Luther? All I hear from Protestants is that he was a Born-Again Christian because he saw the vitriol and lies of the Catholics. I'd love to talk about this, too, but you had better get your history books out.
Peace out, Catholic Steve
Christ's Peace. Homer first. No. When I have been pulled over. It has been "OFFICER, what did I do wrong?". I do not say "Policeman, what did I do wrong".
When I refer to a officer of the law, it will be 90% of the time referred to as THE "police". When there was reason for specificity like my wife saying "where'd you get the ticket, I'd say "On the highway by some CHP (Calif Hwy patrol) who caught me doing 80"
The title "police" generically covers all police officers and then there are titles to their actual positions, ie, CHP, FBI, NSI, Deputy Sheriff..etc. You state that there are multiple names for the same position "... policeman, cop, peace officer, patrolman, etc.". There is also copper, flatfoot, fuz , etc, but as I am sure you would consider these a pejorative, as do I. I have several police friends and associates who take cop and patrolman as a pejorative because they state "I am a deputy sheriff, not a patrolman". They will relate this to others names, as well. Therefore, I am not entirely sold on your title differentiation.
I say this because you can also carry this logic to your family "physician", but you call him/her "Dr. so and so", not "healer", "teacher", not hey "Mr. ENT", "Mr. Cardiologist". They are "doctors". From DOCTOR you have a hierarchy of titles in the areas of specialties. When I meet a Bishop, or even the Pope (Papa- Ltn...father), I can call him properly by his barest of titles "Father so and so", but if you remember scripture we are to also give "double honor" (1 Tim 5:17) to the elders/priests of the church.
1 Timothy 5:17 " The elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honor, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching.
That being the case, I might precede with specific title of Monsignor, Cardinal, etc. But see, your problem as a Protestant (I assume?) is that you will not accept a hierarchy in the church even though the earliest history outside scripture speaks volumes otherwise. You will forsake Christian history until 1517 and even then, you will accept only that which supports your position.
If you read my earlier post you will have every PROTESTANT arguing that Bishop and Priest are not in scripture! That being said, will you (Protestants) hold to the same standard when you also can not find the word pastor and minister there? I told you these words have Latin and Anglo-Saxon roots... they are not in scripture. I will admit that "prebuterous" is there. Why not call out to your church leader next Sunday "Hey, Prebuterous Johnson, good sermon!" You would not even go so far as to start calling him "ELDER so and so". Why not, it's in SCRIPTURE? No, you will rely on word entomology evolution only to the point of pastor or minister, because you live a modern/evolved society that does not call their Church leaders "ELDER" anymore. I do the same but I also accept the Latin and the English entomology evolution from "prebuterous" to "priest" that is scholarly there but others do not accept because it would "too Catholic". Now that position, I understand.
Protestants accept that which is convenient in Church history but nothing more. Case in point...Christmas and Easter. Christmas stands for "Christ's Mass". It is kind of a Catholic thing and has also gone through some word evolution but since most Protestants do not accept any word entomology then it seems that they don't care. "Mass" comes from the Latin "Missa" that came from the Latin after the Mass was completed the Priest would say "Ite, missa est". This literally means "Go, it is the dismissal" which is "Go and spread the Good News" something the priest says at the end of ever Mass. But, it doesn't matter to Protestants because they will participate in this very Catholic HOLY DAY ("holiday "... oh no, another word evolution), this very Catholic Mass because they have no CHRISTMAS. Christmas was declared by Catholic Pope Julius 349AD (oh no, history again) when he wanted to get the pagans away from honoring their God Mithras which was on Dec 25 (there is absolutely no evidence of Dec 25 being Christ's birth, but completely otherwise if you look at other scriptural inferences). Look at what Paul commanded in 1 Cor 9:19 and you'll see Pope Julius was doing the same and was very successful. But you know what, we Catholic Christians would love to have the Protestant Christians honor Christ's birth on a date Catholics declared until you come up with your own Holy Day.
Do you want me to go into Easter? I don't think so because Easter date, title and fertility origins are so completely non-scriptural, non-Protestant that it makes me cry when you make such a big deal about simple words as Bishop and Priest. Protestants will sacrifice their same standard of logic and argument they use to fight Bishop/Priest but in the same breath throw out that very standard/logic when arguing huge historical, non-scriptural words and basis for Christmas and Easter that they can not possibly give up. Go figure.
Now, after attending Oral Roberts University for four years and attending the Evangelical Church of the Vineyard Ministries and Horizon Christian Fellowship for almost 14 years why I left for the Catholic Christian Church. Now, Sean are you still there?
Sean, if I plant an oak acorn in the ground today and come back 100 years later and find this oak acorn had grown to this huge 100 foot tree, is it not still an oak tree whether it started as a seed seed acorn and continues to grow? Of course, it's the same oak with the same generic code it started with as a seed but now it has different appearances. It is huge. It has leaves, it provides shade and shelter for animals with roots that go into the ground as tall as the tree...etc. The Church started with the NT acorn seed of 12 Apostles and today is now the Church 2000+ years older but it is huge both visually and with historical roots to boot. It provides shelter and shade for the impoverished both in spirit and in the flesh. Is the Church perfect? No, and scripture does not promise that from even the leaders down into the followers. What remains constant is the generic code that there is ONE WORD, ONE SPIRIT until the end of time. Protestants think there are thousands of spirits because the proof is in the thousands of pastors/ministers who continue to interpret/twist Scripture to their own destruction by starting new church's that believe in their certain interpretation. If that were not true then why the thousands of different Protestant doctrines that continue to "protest" even from within. Protestants stopped arguing with Catholics in the late 1500's (more History, oh drat) and started arguing with themselves, ie, Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Wesley , King James..etc, etc. I know this to be true because I was the member of two Protestant churches that had spin-off churches because the senior and associate pastors did not agree on certain Scripture interpretations.
If you, Sean, truly believed in the rhetorical statement you made "My question is, who's more correct? The writers of the NT and their use of these terms or the later church fathers? Who carries more weight?". Let Socratic question come back to you ... " If you believe the NT authors, then why like Homer, do you not call your church leaders Elder from now on and even correct him when he says it is Pastor or Minister by telling that such words are not found in Scripture?" But, you won't. You will find it too convenient to call them Pastor or Minister while you continue to attend non-Scriptural and very Catholic Holy Days like Christmas and Easter.
The fascinating thing about Protestants is that they will only use history when it puts down Catholics or supports generic Christianity. When history is used by Catholic Christians it is always untrue. I cite the recent arguments of Protestant Christians when they want to defend Christianity against those that believed the recent movie "DiVinci Code". You can find all sorts of Protestant books citing this Church Father and that Church Father as proof text that Christ was not married, etc, but when I use the same Church Father as proof text for Catholic Christian Doctrine I get the big "oh no!, you can't do that".
Another post, but I'd love to discuss your statement "When someone would bring up the written authority of the apostles like Jesus, Paul, John, Peter etc. they were thrown out of the church and many were killed because they would not submit to the Pope (Instead of Christ)." I hate to do this to you because it will force you to cite from some historical document so I can check it out.
You also state "Is this not what Luther did? How was he treated?" Are I ask, have you studied Luther? All I hear from Protestants is that he was a Born-Again Christian because he saw the vitriol and lies of the Catholics. I'd love to talk about this, too, but you had better get your history books out.
Peace out, Catholic Steve
Last edited by Guest on Wed Dec 31, 1969 7:00 pm, edited 0 times in total.
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Catholic Steve,
By the way, why do you think your church does the "mass" thing? Have they not read that He was "offered once for all", Hebrews 10.
[I think you mean "etymology". Entomology is about bugs. (Or insects, there's another one of those cases where two words denominate the same thing.)]
As far as a hierarchy goes, Christ as head and some elders ought to suffice. Whether they are called "elder Ken", "elder Ralph", etc. or just Ken and Ralph doesn't seem to be a big concern. I can't recall a precept in scripture regarding how elders are to be addressed. It would seem we honor elders by respecting them because they are worthy of respect. We would not honor them by any title in spite of their conduct. After all, being a servant is as high as it gets; I have that on the highest authority.
And why all those fancy robes and hats? Is that how servants are to dress? See Matthew 23:5.
God bless!
Why would you want to call him "father"? Someone with more authority than your "Pope" said you ought not to do that; Matthew 23:9.When I meet a Bishop, or even the Pope (Papa- Ltn...father), I can call him properly by his barest of titles "Father so and so",
Every Sunday is "Easter" as far as I'm concerned. Nothing in scripture informs me I ought to celebrate Messiah's birth, rather he requested we remember his sacrifice - death and resurrection.Protestants accept that which is convenient in Church history but nothing more. Case in point...Christmas and Easter. Christmas stands for "Christ's Mass". It is kind of a Catholic thing and has also gone through some word evolution but since most Protestants do not accept any word entomology then it seems that they don't care.
By the way, why do you think your church does the "mass" thing? Have they not read that He was "offered once for all", Hebrews 10.
[I think you mean "etymology". Entomology is about bugs. (Or insects, there's another one of those cases where two words denominate the same thing.)]
As far as a hierarchy goes, Christ as head and some elders ought to suffice. Whether they are called "elder Ken", "elder Ralph", etc. or just Ken and Ralph doesn't seem to be a big concern. I can't recall a precept in scripture regarding how elders are to be addressed. It would seem we honor elders by respecting them because they are worthy of respect. We would not honor them by any title in spite of their conduct. After all, being a servant is as high as it gets; I have that on the highest authority.
And why all those fancy robes and hats? Is that how servants are to dress? See Matthew 23:5.
God bless!
Last edited by Guest on Wed Dec 31, 1969 7:00 pm, edited 0 times in total.
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A Berean