My last post of the year!

Watziznehm wrote:

Sorry to The Old Maid and WWW if you are offended.

I can't speak for WWW but I don't recall you doing or saying anything to me to offend me. I don't agree with you on some points but that is not inherently offensive. "No worries."

My point in mentioning denomination was that many people here adhere to their denomination's teachings on assorted issues. So I offered up the suggestion that the same might be true of you, just within a denomination that teaches something different. When I heard the question "Do your parents know what you believe?", my insta-reaction was, "How do people know that his parents don't know? What if they do, because that's what they teach". Which seems to be the case. A minor point perhaps, but one worth clearing up.

...

I do have to mention that your Ezekiel verses are sometimes taken to "represent" things and ideas, but not as often as people think. As bizarre as the verses seem, there's a strong argument that the verses should be taken literally.

Specifically, it is argued the prophet Ezekiel saw exactly what he said he saw, a being "in likeness unto a Throne" (Ezek. 1:26). I capitalized it because "Throne" is a title of one of the angel choirs. A Throne is a person (albeit an angel person). A Throne may have many attributes, but that's not the same thing as "representing" something else.

Catholics and Eastern Orthodox inherited their understanding of angels and angel lore from Judaism. Protestants lost some of that during the Reformation, which in some sense was kind of like a divorce. (Who gets the property? Who gets the books? Who gets the friends? Who gets the memories?) Therefore many Christians are not as familiar with the angels who come in different shapes and sizes. Anyhow, the original angel lore was that there are nine choirs of angels. The ones called Thrones are hardly ever seen by humans -- maybe because we freak out when we meet even humanoid-shaped angels? So what Ezekiel was describing was beyond what most of the Bible writers lived to tell us. If we take the verses literally -- that the prophet actually "met" the choir of angels who manifest in a non-humanoid form -- then the wheels-within-wheels are simply themselves, Throne angels going about their tasks.

I won't be around the net for a few days. Happy New Year, everybody, and see you all in 2010!

Watz, I love your passion. BUT ... please listen to TOM and Gladius and ww and TBG and LL and Dr. Ransom! They're talking reason. And true spiritual experiences can be reasonable, can they not?

Like ww and TOM, I'd like to know your denomination. Maybe it'll incriminate you and maybe not. But it matters when it comes to our religious training. It took me awhile to appreciate the insights and theology of non-Pentecostals. Guess what? I now prefer Baptists! I've attended so many different denominational and non-denominational churches over the years that I'm not that hung up on what denomination a person is. All must have one source: the Word.

Stubbornness is good, if you're right. If not, it can be a hindrance. And it's starting to resemble pride, not humility/meekness.

Christianity needs to be grounded on the truth God has given us! True, there is experience, but it is only true and right if it is grounded in the Word of the God. If it points us to it!

Agreed. Watz, we're not saying experience is nothing. We have a relationship with God. We have real experiences. But how? Primarily through the Word! If you're not tied to God through the Word, you're getting into dangerous territory. Exalting experience or intuition over the Word has led many in the past to found or join some really bad cults.

But what everyone is trying to tell you is that while God does use dreams, and visions, and subjective experiences, they must all be weighed against the objective truth of His Word. The enemy uses subjective experiences too.

I'm in full agreement with this, Watz ... FULL AGREEMENT. All dreams, visions, and subjective experiences must have an external and authoritative source. And there's only one: the Bible. And guess what? Like ww and TBG pointed out, divinely written revelation has ended! My parents warned me a long time ago against anyone who talked about a "new revelation." For them, it was a code phrase for a cult, for someone who was delusional or demonic.

No, Jesus didn't beat the devil by His "inner knowing." If He did that, He would not have used Scripture right back at the devil. But no! He went back to the Scriptures and showed how the devil was misusing them — using His intellect. His brain!

It isn't so very different from what we are doing here, really. Scripture interprets Scripture. The devil was misinterpreting Scripture for his own ends. Inner knowing had nothing to do with Jesus' answers to Satan, Watz. God's Word had everything to do with those answers!

Agreed. We must all go back to one source: the Bible. If we don't, what's the result? Heresy, cults, etc.

Watz, "belly" [Heb. beten] in the verse you quoted means this:

1) belly, womb, body
a) belly, abdomen
1) as seat of hunger
2) as seat of mental faculties
3) of depth of Sheol (fig.)
b) womb

Here's the source. In the KJV it's translated as "belly 30, womb 31, body 8, within 2, born 1." The Hebrew matters.

Jesus, himself, warned against taking even the Torah too literally, such as what keeping the Sabbath as a day of rest might entail.

I have a problem with this. Jesus Himself said, "Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled" [Matthew 5]. The Pharisees weren't necessarily taking the Torah too literally. Instead, they had added their own rules to God's law [commentaries? Talmud?] to ensure no one broke the law. By doing so, they made the law a burden.

Ah, I realize that there has been a misconception here. In looking my beliefs over, I don't want to go against the word. I just think a little differently about it than you. Mainly, that God wants to have a personal relationship with us, in agreement with his word. Further more, that he can communicate with us via our spirits. Of course if it is God speaking it won't be in disagreement with his word because God can't contradict himself, but that he can speak to us in a personal way without us ever looking at a word of scripture. Naturally though, if we were to look at scripture, it would support what God said. My disagreement therefore, was not that the truth of God isn't scripture, but that the truths of God can be communicated without scripture; and if we were to actually take the time to look it up in scripture, we would find that it was in agreement.

What I am saying is that I am dreaming the dream that God wants to have a personal relationship with everyone and simply knock there socks off with experiences of him. I base this dream on three verses.

And are you mistaking this dream for reality? What is it that you mean by this? What kind of experiences are we talking of? I experience God through worship, the word, and the sacraments. I find it in the fellowship of the believers. How do I know this is God's doing? Because of the teaching of scripture.

You keep quoting these verses even though they do nothing for your case. The verses in Romans are talking about spirit in contrast to flesh. We must be careful here not to say that our bodies are somehow inherently evil. The flesh-spirit distinction here is metaphorical for the old and the new man in us. "Spirit" here is moral, not relational, given the larger context of Romans.

You see, if you believe that Jesus was 100 % man, but filled with the Spirit of God and who knew how to hear from his Father in heaven, then it is possible for us to do what he did. All we need is the Spirit of God too.

Very God of very God, begotten not made, being of one substance with the Father before all worlds. Jesus was both God and man. My position is clear here.

I dare to believe that God wants to have a personal relationship with me. You say that experience is nothing, well, I say that I'm not satisfied with my God experience and want more. If there isn't any more, then so be it, but I'm not convinced as such.

I don't say that experience is nothing--experience without interpretation based on clear Scriptural teaching is nothing. Sola Scriptura--Scripture alone is the ultimate authority from God for faith and practice.

I want more of God too, Watz, and I find Him in His Word, as He has promised. Why spend so much effort looking for "spiritual experiences" when the God who you want to know has already revealed Himself? I don't run off spiritual highs because what God wants to teach me is to praise Him even when I don't feel like it. My relationship with God is based on something more than feelings and "experiences"--it's based on truth. Rock-solid life-changing true truth. And here is that truth:

Question 1. What is thy only comfort in life and death?

Answer: That I with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own, but belong unto my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ; who, with his precious blood, has fully satisfied for all my sins, and delivered me from all the power of the devil; and so preserves me that without the will of my heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head; yea, that all things must be subservient to my salvation, and therefore, by his Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eternal life, and makes me sincerely willing and ready, henceforth, to live unto him.

I hope that all of us can say this.

Grace and peace,

TBG

(pops head into discussion at the invitation of a few other reader/posters) My, this IS an interesting turn of discussion. Well, hello everyone. I know I’m infrequently here, but I have my “spies” who do let me know when something comes up I’d be truly interested in and able, perhaps, to comment on to some effect.

I could do a lot quoting, copying and pasting here to try to deal on an individual base with the concerns being expressed, but I hate re-inventing wheels…(which is a statement that I had no intention of typing in connection with the Ezekiel verse, but now that it is in black and white makes me laugh, so I’m leaving it). To avoid doing so, I went looking for information from someone who has already done the wheel-inventing work, and will with your permission, post from a couple of exceptional books on the subject. Please note that what is bolded and what is italicized in smaller print is my own emphasis. For Watziznehm in particular, and all of you in general, I hope you will find this helpful and informative. Watziznehm, I think you’ll find that your understanding of the authority and proper use of scripture is quite challenged.

“One issue that has been raised especially in the twentieth century pertains to the nature of revelation, or what God reveals and how He reveals. Some theologians have maintained that God does not reveal information about Himself but, rather, reveals Himself. Revelation, according to this conception, is an encounter with a Person rather than the communication of truths from God. Thus the statements found in the Bible do not constitute divinely revealed truths but are rather the fallible statements of humans trying to express what happened to them as God encountered them. The words spoken by Jesus were not objectively God’s Word. For those, however, to whom God presented Himself through those words, they could be said to be the Word of God during that encounter. Similarly, when we meet God in a person-to-person encounter as the Word is being read or preached, we can say that this is revelation. When that immediate presence ceases, however, what we have are merely the words of Isaiah, Luke, or Paul.

Such a view presents several problems. For one, Jesus, Paul, and others in the New Testament quoted the Scriptures of their day (what Christians today call the Old Testament) as if these very words were God’s message. Further, Jesus treated His words as having validity and authority apart from whether His hearers understood and agreed (“He who has ears, let him hear,” Matt 11:15). He treated Himself and His actions as being objectively the presence of God (“Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father,” John 14:9).

A further problem occurs when we ask how God reveals Himself. Orthodox Christianity’s usual answer about what God reveals is that He reveals Himself, but He does it at least in part by revealing information about Himself. This is true of human relationships as well. If it were not, we could not be sure whom we had encountered, whether God or another human being. If in a dark room we bump into (“encounter”) someone, how do we know whom we have encountered or what that person is like? We know by observing the person or by having the person tell us something about himself or herself. Either case is self-revelation by the person. But our knowledge of the person comes through sense perception. Certainly no one claims to have sensory perception of God. A nonpropositional encounter with a person who cannot be experienced through sense perception is a meaningless concept.

…For if all persons are to have an opportunity to know God, there must be a way for this special or localized or particular revelation to become available to all persons. If this were not the case, then with the passing of the person or group to which the revelation originally came, the revelation would also be lost and become ineffective. This could be counteracted either by repetition of the process of revelation to each person or by somehow preserving the revelation once given. God has employed this latter method, which we refer to as inspiration.
By inspiration we mean the Holy Spirit’s activity of directing and guiding the writers of Scripture so that what they wrote was actually the Word of God or was just what God wanted recorded. In other words, it preserved or recorded what God had revealed so that the resulting document carried the same authority and effect as if God Himself were speaking directly.

The need for this written record is apparent. While in theory the revelation might have been preserved by oral retelling, such a process has certain defects. Anyone who has played the game where each person whispers a story to the next person in the chain, attempting to repeat it as accurately as possible, knows the changes that can result in such serial retelling. Rumors are even more extreme forms of this phenomenon. An accurate and reliable source of truth requires preservation in written form. ”

“Biblical hermeneutics” is the study about how to study, understand, and interpret the Bible. Biblical hermeneutics is a very important topic for every Christian. The way a person understands Scripture will ultimately affect every aspect of his or her Christian life. Biblical hermeneutics describes the principles for properly interpreting the Bible. These principles are based on what the Bible says about itself, what it says about understanding the Scriptures, and how Bible texts interpret other Bible texts.

All Scripture is from God and inspired by the Holy Spirit (2 Timothy 3:16, 2 Peter 1:20–21). God is good, pure, holy, perfect, faithful, never changes, does not contradict Himself, never makes mistakes, never sins, and cannot lie (Leviticus 19:2; Numbers 23:19; Deuteronomy 7:9–10; 32:4; Psalms 19:9; Isaiah 49:7; Malachi 3:6; Matthew 5:48; Mark 10:17–18; Romans 3:3–4; 15:8; 1 Corinthians 1:9, 17–20; 10:13; 2 Corinthians 1:18; 5:21; Titus 1:2; 2 Timothy 2:13; Hebrews 4:15; 6:17–18; 7:26–28; 13:8; Revelation 1:5; 3:7, 14). Because God has the characteristics just mentioned, His communication must also have the same characteristics. Consequently, all Scripture is from God, authoritative, reliable, without error, always true, and without contradictions (2 Samuel 22:31; Psalms 12:6; 18:30; 19:7–9; 119:128, 140, 143; Isaiah 40:8; Matthew 5:17–18; John 10:35; 2 Corinthians 1:17–20; 2 Timothy 3:16; Hebrews 4:12; 6:17–18; 1 Peter 1:25; 2 Peter 1:20–21).

We must ask for the Holy Spirit’s help to correctly understand the meaning of Bible texts (1 Corinthians 116). There is a curse against changing the meaning of God’s revealed truth in the Bible (Revelation 22:18–19). Many factors influence the way people understand Bible texts. However, we should seek to understand every Bible text according to the intent of the author in its context and in keeping with the teaching of the entire Bible.

All Scripture is from God, always true, always reliable, authoritative, and without error. By contrast, all people, other than Jesus, and all human organizations sin and make mistakes (Romans 3:9–23). So their teachings may not always be trustworthy. In the same way, spirits and angels are not always trustworthy, because not all spirits and angels are from God (2 Corinthians 11:13–15; Galatians 1:8–9; 1 Thessalonians 5:20–22; 2 Thessalonians 2:1–3; 1 Timothy 4:1–3; 2 Peter 2:4–16; 1 John 4:1; Jude 5–7). There are many false teachers (2 Corinthians 12:13; Titus 1:10–11; 2 Peter 2:1; 1 John 4:1), and humans frequently misunderstand spiritual truth (1 Corinthians 13; 2 Timothy 3:13–17). Since only the Bible and the Holy Trinity are completely reliable and without error, we should not give any doctrine, human, organization, or any other source (that would include human experience of any kind, mystical or otherwise) more authority than the Bible to tell us the right way to think about what God has said in Scripture. The teaching of the whole Bible is the ultimate authority for determining the meaning of every Bible text. Because God does not contradict Himself and has revealed His truth in the Scriptures, any teaching from any other book or source that contradicts anything the Bible teaches is not from God. Therefore, we should not base our ultimate interpretation of Bible texts on any doctrine, human opinion, organization, or any source other than the Bible. (that would include human experience of any kind, mystical or otherwise)

The following is an abbreviated list of the principles of classical biblical hermeneutics for ease in memorization and use.

1. Use the Bible to determine the meaning of Bible texts instead of relying on other sources (that would include human experience of any kind, mystical or otherwise) to interpret the Bible.

2. Interpret the passage in its immediate context before referring to other passages.

3. Understand a passage according to its ordinary meaning in its entire context.
4. The most accurate way to understand a text is according to its grammar and structure.

5. Interpret the passage according to the overall teaching of the book and the whole Bible.

6. If two or more texts appear to contradict each other, look for an interpretation that permits each text to remain faithful to its meaning in its own context without contradicting the other texts.

7. Use the clear teaching texts of the New Testament to interpret all other kinds of Bible texts. Do not base any teaching on an unclear text or on only one text.

So, there you are. Although everything above except the acknowledged first two paragraphs is someone else’s writing, feel free to ask questions concerning what is posted here. I’ll do my best to answer. Watz, I suggest you begin by taking the Ezekiel scripture to task using the above 7 principles. If your interpretation survives that, I’ll accept it as authoritative.

mm

I can't speak for WWW but I don't recall you doing or saying anything to me to offend me. I don't agree with you on some points but that is not inherently offensive. "No worries."

My point in mentioning denomination was that many people here adhere to their denomination's teachings on assorted issues. So I offered up the suggestion that the same might be true of you, just within a denomination that teaches something different. When I heard the question "Do your parents know what you believe?", my insta-reaction was, "How do people know that his parents don't know? What if they do, because that's what they teach". Which seems to be the case. A minor point perhaps, but one worth clearing up.

Yes you can speak for me this time, TOM, I agree absolutely and a Happy New Year to you, and Watz as well.

I happen to have been given a book on Vanished Civilizations for Christmas (no surprises there ) which mentions Abraham's Ur of the Chaldees, where there was a very widespread mythology, preserved in Assurbanipal's first library at Nineveh, where they respected all things Babylonian, until they burned the place down.

But this mythology was not the Assyrian view of religion, nor was it the monotheistic Hebrew one. Rather it belonged to the earlier Sumerian civilization which flourished at the site of Ur. This Sumerian myth mentions a bloke called Utnapishtim who loaded a boat with two of all living things to survive a great flood, brought about because the Babylonian gods were angry with the sinfulness of man. This great flood happened after a terrible storm which lasted for six days and nights then eased off on the seventh day, after which the animals and Utnapishtim alighted from the boat, once the waters receded.

Sound familiar? Of course it does. But Abraham of Ur would have keeled over laughing that a mere 6 days of a storm would need a boat to rescue all living things. Surely common sense would tell him, not to mention whoever wrote Genesis that 40 days and 40 nights of rain is a far more likely scenario for a devastating flood. Unless something else unexplained happened, something like the Krakatoa explosion of the 1800's or the Boxing Day Tsunami of 2004. And common sense, not to mention his conscience, (Watz's intuition, perhaps?) would remind Abraham that all those ridiculous stone god effigies made in Ur would not have of themselves created anything, let alone the Gods they purportedly represented, being able to act in concert to create the world. Leaving Abraham open to talking to the True God who ordained in his Ten Commandments

"Thou shalt not make any graven image".

Jesus, himself, warned against taking even the Torah too literally, such as what keeping the Sabbath as a day of rest might entail.

I have a problem with this. Jesus Himself said, "Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled" [Matthew 5]. The Pharisees weren't necessarily taking the Torah too literally. Instead, they had added their own rules to God's law [commentaries? Talmud?] to ensure no one broke the law. By doing so, they made the law a burden.

Er the Jews didn't alter the Ten Commandments either. When I looked in Exodus 20 of my copy of the NY 1951 Harkavy translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, yes, it said:

"And God spoke all these words, saying, I am the Lord thy God who have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

Thou shalt have no other gods before me......etc. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy, Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work; But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:

I didn't want to quote the entire chapter and verse of Exodus 20, important though it is, and though I italicized the entire bit I was most interested in, I took pains not to change the appearance of the text by one jot or one tittle either to add to them or to change them by jot and tittle as Jesus said in Matthew 5:18. The Jews never changed anything of the Ten Commandments or the rest of the Torah, any more than He did.

The copy of the Talmud I have here seems to be mostly extra material, enlarging on Biblical stories, giving many of them extra background, from the time of Cain and Abel up unto the second destruction of Jerusalem and beyond, to Maimonides. Though it tells of the conversation between God and Moses, and God foreseeing that the Israelites would make the golden calf, it says nothing about the actual rules and regulations in the Torah let alone the Ten Commandments which Jewish children have to learn.

The problem Jesus had with the Pharisees was their very literal interpretation of what is meant by "manner of work". Quite recently, some Orthodox Jews in Sydney wanted the traffic lights changed in that part of Sydney so they could go to their Synagogue on the Sabbath without actually having to press a button. That, you see, is the sort of 'manner of work' which might lead them to desecrate the Sabbath. But I would be surprised if the local authorities even in Israel would have obliged them.

What Jesus said in Mark 2: 27, was 'The Sabbath was made for Man not Man for the Sabbath'. That is to say, it isn't a rule to make people's lives unbearable, but a day of rest for Man's own good. If there is no food, Common Sense says to organise something to eat, Sabbath or no Sabbath. And if someone needs medical attention on the Sabbath, then they should get it, according to Jesus, and also Common Sense.

Actually if anyone has altered the Old Testament in practice it is us Christians. Unless we are Seventh Day Adventists, who are, I understand, opposed to the Catholic Church, in particular, we haven't been keeping the Sabbath for years, though the work is often scaled down in the English speaking world. We have, instead, allotted Sunday as a day of worship. And really, after all that guzzling on Christmas ham I would be delighted to forgo such a non-kosher product, even though St Peter apparently said that such dietary regulations aren't necessary any more.

And I am sure that you who so earnestly bombard poor Watz with so many other verses to prove we all have to literally adhere to whatever you say is the case, have all benefitted at one time or other from very earnest prayer to the Almighty, whether for the protection of your families or for other reasons dear to your hearts and minds.

By the way, I was surprised and delighted that the Christmas Day sermon on the Birth of Christ and His mission to the world did acknowledge that people can still believe in God even if they believe in Evolution, since they still have to ask themselves what, or Who, started off the Big Bang. That was at the church I normally attend.

Happy New Year to all, even if you don't agree that after Midnight today (3pm 31/12/09) will start 2010, preferring one of the other New Year festivities at March 25th, or September or whichever you say is the most Biblically correct.

Well, this is quite a debate that has literally exploded in the past week! Too much stuff to keep track of.

I will not belabor any points, except to say that TBG, Gladius, WW, and 220christian made some great points. To just branch off of the general point made most acutely by WW and 220christian, about God, Jesus, and Scriptural interpretation, I must stress one point that they mentioned, but for a different reason.

As they pointed out, and Watz acknowledges, we must have a standard to measure our experiences against. God's Word is that standard. To utilize the example of Jesus temptation by Satan, I will point out that as WW stated, it was His intellect, but His intellect as God that caused Him to prevail. We are not God, so our experiences are worthless if not supportable by the Scriptures.

Watz, I really think that where you come in wrong, as WW alluded to, is in equating our created, finite attributes based on God's attributes, directly to His attributes. They are not equal. We are not equal. The only way to judge our walk, experiences, and so forth, is by His word. Period.

Wagga, I think that your point on the distortion of the Word by Christians, is accurate. We have taken the Word, and reinterpreted it, as we see fit. However, I will caution that the actual obedience is to the words in the Scriptures, and their spirit, not to the actual customs of the times of the New Testament. I do not think that not adhering to the same worship patterns is all that big a deal, as long as we do worship. Church tradition is useful, but it is not the inspired Word of God. Only the Bible is that.

TOM, you were on the same wave length that Wagga first picked up on, methinks. In fact, your metaphor was all too ironic, as I think that the actual institution of marriage was cheapened by Protestants going out of their way to be "non-Catholic" in every way. We need to get some of that sacred spirit back into our interpretations of Marriage and some other important areas.

Well, that's it for now, all. Happy New Year, everyone! You too, Wagga. God bless.

I bid you all adieu.

I think that the actual institution of marriage was cheapened by Protestants going out of their way to be "non-Catholic" in every way.

I just need to address this because it shows a misunderstanding of church history.

In the medieval period, marriage was . . . well . . . tolerated. People who got married were looked down upon by the church because they had cares other than the well-being of the church. The only "calling" recognized in that culture was that of service to the church as a priest, monk, or nun--all of which required celibacy.

Along comes Martin Luther, who looks in the Scriptures and finds that this is not the biblical pattern. He finds St. Paul speaking of the wives of elders (presbyters) and overseers (Bishops). The response among those who are defining the new Protestant doctrines is that marriage does not preclude service to the church.

As this doctrine developed, the attitude began to be that every profession is a calling, not just ministry. Teaching, farming, making barrels, being a monarch, being a soldier, painting, all of those are callings no less worthy than ministry. As such, all of these callings must be followed to the best of one's ability for the glory of God.

So if anything, marriage has been traditionally more valued among Protestants and it has only been in recent years that the Roman Catholic Church has shown signs of maybe reconsidering this point of contention.

TBG

Great points, TBG. I would merely argue that to take something that is considered a sacrament, and take it to mean a "contract", is to cheapen it enormously. I will cede the arguments to you on the point of church history, as I readily admit you know more about it than I do.

I will, however, point out that in the US, the legal system, based upon Common Law tradition, a heavily Protestant influenced product, has turned marriage away from something holy into a mere "contract". Our very Founding recognizes not the sacred idea of marriage, but the legal elements only. Thus the "full faith and credit" clause of the Constitution came into existence. While said clause included business contracts, it had very little to do with them, but more so to do with marriage.

Now, one would argue that the effort to protect marriage at the inception of the US was an acknowledgement of the sacredness and holiness of it. However, ideas have consequences, and that very tradition, by turning marriage into a contract has caused it to be vulnerable to insidious attacks ever since.

Therefore, as I said, I will cede the territory to you on the Doctrinal issues, but on the long-term legal issues, I would argue that I have a point. God bless all.

I bid you all adieu.

Great points, TBG. I would merely argue that to take something that is considered a sacrament, and take it to mean a "contract", is to cheapen it enormously.

There are only two sacraments in Scripture: the Lord's Supper and Baptism. Sacraments are activities exclusive to the life and work of the visible church. Last I checked, marriage is available to non-members of the visible church. Marriage may be a religious institution, but it is not the exclusive realm of the church, which all sacraments are.

TBG

I think that MC means that in the context of the Church marriage is a sacramental (i.e. sacred) institution, or should be. Though I don't think MC's argument that Protestantism in particular diminishes marriage holds much water given certain...ahem...political discussions regarding the sacredness of marriage in America .

Indeed, in that particular debate one will find many more "liberal" Catholic and Anglican/Episcopalian people (among a greater movement in society at large) arguing for a recognition of the Civil institution of marriage vs a largely (but not strictly) Protestant movement arguing in favour of a purely Sacramental institution of marriage.

TBG makes some excellent historical points, but they have little bearing on how marriage is perceived today by many Christians across the board in all denominations.

GB

P.S. You need to hurry up and post again MC. Your post count is currently the number of the Beast .

Sacraments, GB, have certain criteria. Marriage was not instituted by Christ, as it predated him by . . . well . . . a while. Neither is it exclusively the domain of the church. Therefore it is not a sacrament.

TBG

Methinks you are taking a very narrow technical view of the issue TBG . I am not arguing the technicality of your point.

I am merely pointing out that many (if not the vast majority of) Christians, would argue that the Institution of marriage had been "Baptized" in Christ and thus made Sacred (which is a synonym of Sacramental). Which is why there is so much fuss regarding that particular political debate which I am skirting around.

EDIT:
Indeed, given my own perspective TBG, I tend to think your point is well made and I wish others would also agree that marriage is not the sole prerogative of The Church.

GB

Just because something is sacred does not make it a sacrament. Sacred things are things set apart for God--sacraments are acts instituted by God through Christ as distinctive practices of the church.

TBG

Sacred and Sacramental are synonymous TBG, look it up .

In any case, another argument that many would make (and have) is that God Created the Institution of Marriage with Adam and Eve, thus making it sacred (and sacramental) from the Beginning. So, come to think of it, I guess I am arguing against your "technical" point now .

GB