On Sat, 7 Jan 2017 14:03:53 -0600, Muggles
wrote:
SNIPP

Authority comes from God - not councils.


There was *** A LOT *** of praying going on when the Council
compiled the Bible. Without the Authority that came from
God and worked through the Councils and the people, we
would have no Bible.

You must give you pastor a hard time. He has to research,
pray, fast, and work his tail to tech every Sunday. That
is his job as a "spiritual advisor". What need do you have
for him if all you have to do is read it yourself and
interpret everything yourself?
"How can I, unless someone guides me?”


I've studied the Bible for 42 years, and that includes in church bible
studies, home bible groups, and on my own. When a christian is a baby
christian, they need someone to guide them, and often times they never
grow up and stand on their own 2 feet "rightly dividing the word"
because they've studied it. They allow people to feed them baby food
and they never grow up and mature. One should grow up in the word and
mature and then be able to teach others for themselves. That's how it's
supposed to work - all of us are supposed to study, learn, and then go
into the world and preach the gospel... not just a select few who see
themselves as having some mystical authority over the rest.

[...]
That is the one difference between the "Roman Catholic Church" and
the "Universal Church". The Catholics have, for centuries, been told
only the church hiarchy can understand the written scriptures and tell
thecommon man what it means. For years the comman man was not allowed
to have the scriptures in their own language, so "the church" had
control over "the people".

With Luther and the Reformation, that changed for the "heretics" and
it became not only possible, but highly recommended, for "the people"
- who WERE "the church" to study the scriptures themselves, freeing
them from the control and dictatesd of "the (catholic) church"

If when those who complain about "the church"just being there to
control people and keep people down, as several here have complained -
base their observations solely on the "Church of Rome" - AKA the
"Catholic Church" there may be some truth to it, but the "Catholic
Church" is only a very small part of "the church" as a whole. and the
two can be VERY different.