Evangelical Christian leaders from around the world are mourning the death of evangelical figure John Stott, who died Wednesday at the age of 90.
An Anglican theologian from the U.K., Stott was the chief architect of the 1974 Lausanne Covenant and the author of over 50 Christian books in which he took complex theology and explained it in a way lay people could understand. One of his most popular books was Basic Christianity (1958), which has been translated into more than 60 languages, according to Christian book publisher InterVarsity Press. He has also influenced millions of Christians through other well-known titles including Christ the Controversialist (1970), Issues Facing Christians Today (1984) and the one he always considered his best: The Cross of Christ (1986).
Graham helped organize the international meeting that unveiled the Lausanne Covenant, a historic document that served as a...
I'd like to offer my condolences to the Stott family in the death of their loved one. May the God of all comfort, comfort you at this time. With every blessing.
As Spurgeon declared Calvinism IS the Gospel, therefore God will never allow it to become redundant.
As for the historic Roman Catholic "umbrella," there were two kinds of people under that umbrella prior to the God ordained Reformation. One group was Christian, the others were Roman Catholics. As you know from experience the Roman Catholics were idolatrous heretics who introduced blasphemy into their worship, who introduced the evil traditions into church to the detriment of Biblical doctrines. Thus this part of the umbrella was the false church set up by Satan and, as today, was/is run by the papal antichrist.
The God ordained Reformation removed the Christian element from the idolatrous Roman Catholic umbrella, they then protested all the false heretical unBiblical practices and became the Protestant Church, which is the Church which sticks to the Bible and the truth.
What is left today, the Roman Catholic group, remains ignorant of the truth and is just as false and idolatrous as ever. These are unsaved reprobates doing a works based religion going no where.
Saved Christians have always left the Roman Catholic conglomerate spiritually and now today physically. Halleluiah.
JIG wrote: God saves sinners in the Roman Catholic Church as He did in the OT: By Grace Alone through Christ Alone. How else can one be saved? Grace and Peace be with you.
So why was the Catholic Church so opposed to the Protestant Reformation, seeing as it taught a salvation by grace through faith in Christ alone, apart from works?
Bibliophile wrote: No one had heard of Sola Fide until Luther coined it in the 16th Century and stated, "Sola Fide is the article upon which the Church stands or falls."
Bibliophile You've got it the wrong way round dear fellow. The reason why the Reformers identified the five Sola's is because the Roman Catholics introduced "human tradition" as part of the teachings and doctrines in the church. Thus the Papal antichrist and his cronies can utter any old rubbish and authenticate it, because the gullible followers of the RCC are convinced that these essentially human utterings are gospel. This of course as any real Christian knows is anathema.
Sola Scriptura then was introduced to oppose the daft Roman Catholic hypothesis that the Pope and his academic cardinals can come up with revelations equal to the Scriptures. As real Christians we Protestants realise how stupid this is but heresy is one of the main industries at the Vatican. Other industries like peddling weird relics demonstrate how false the Roman Catholic organisation is in its misguided enthusiasm to emulate the true church.
"Sola scriptura is the teaching that the Bible is the only inspired and authoritative word of God, is the only source for Christian doctrine." TRUE!!
Galatians 2 13 And the rest of the Jews joined him in hypocrisy, with the result that even Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy. 14 But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in the presence of all, "If you, being a Jew, live like the Gentiles and not like the Jews, how is it that you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews? 15 "We are Jews by nature, and not sinners from among the Gentiles; 16 nevertheless knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we may be justified by faith in Christ, and not by the works of the Law; since by the works of the Law shall no flesh be justified.---NASB
No there are no Popes in the Church.
Paul was very good at preaching the Gospel as were many of the other Christians, and the message isn't that complicated, Preaching the Gospel as God's Promise Fulfilled as it is pointed out in this sermon. We have the completed message of God in the Bible. I would have hoped that John Stott would have realized that.
Paul was a Protestant becasue Peter was not his Pope!!
Paul was a Protestant because he rejected man's religious establishment as the means to God, but rather was personally changed by Christ and the Holy Spirit.
Paul was a Protestant because he modelled his faith after the teachings of Christ, who was crucified by the relgious establishment for going against their program.
And the word "Protestant" is rather like a deflated balloon.
Are you saved and washed clean by the blood of Christ?
That truly is all that matters.
Its not which group is best. This is not a contest!! The scriptures make it clear, Christ's message of salvation is so clear. All you have to do is open the gospels and read them.
Christians who celebrate their new life in Christ, do not think of themselves as Protestants. Their starting point is the cross, and everything is built from that.
Bibliophile wrote: Name one Protestant, who, for certain, beyond a shadow of a doubt, is in Heaven.
Martin Luther and John Calvin.
There are many more I could name but I nominate these two because they were clearly used by God to remove the Church from the Idolatrous Roman Catholic error, fallacy and heresy. Praise be to God"
The Reformation which God ordained brought about the Protestant Church which consequently provided a pure Scriptural form of worship for the Elect. Praise be to God!
The Protestant Church returned the congregations to Sola Scriptura - and subsequently distanced the true Christians from the worship of graven images, rediculous relics and the blasphemous mass. Praise be to God!
The reason why the Roman Catholic outfit is not Sola Scriptura - is that their religion wants to worship:: Idolatry Heresy maryolatry iconolatry relics old bones dead sinners toast and whatever else these poor misguided infidelic heathen raise to deify.
Perhaps your not getting it Bibliophile, but the football wasn't dropped by the true Church, it was dropped by the vast majority of the Roman Communion.
Bibliophile wrote: Jesus gave the keys of the kingdom to Peter and his successor bishops.
Could you provide the book, chapter and verse which establishes this claim?
And then there is this spoken to the priests and Pharisees:
Mat 21:43 Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.
What was that nation? The other sheep Jesus said He had and must bring along, perhaps?
What you conveniently fail to acknowledge is that the "keys of the kingdom of God" is simply a reference to the gospel (oracles of God) which, I can say with the greatest of confidence, the RCC establishment has never known or possessed.
Bibliophile, Just a little history! The decline of medieval Christianity was gradual. The more serious errors came in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The results of this descending darkness were serious. Even before the career of Martin Luther in the early 1500s, Gregory of Rimini (a monk) and Thomas Bradwardine, the Archbishop of Canterbury, challenged the whole notion of synthesis in regard to salvation. What arose was a return by some to Augustine’s insistence upon the sovereign grace of God conquering people’s sinful rebellion. These theologians reasoned that, if one relied upon sincere cooperative efforts with God and the church, in the end it was not grace that saved. Reliance upon various kinds of preparation for grace was viewed as a form of self-righteous human effort. God did not need help, even sincere human help, to save the sinner.
Out of this theological confusion and corrupt practice the medieval church began to face serious abuses. So a providential historical context of criticism, which helped bring about the great change, was already in place when Luther began to speak out regarding the matter of indulgences. Yes Rome dropped the ball, but others played on, hence the many murders carried out by Rome for Heresy.
Jesus ascended into Heaven leaving a Christian generation who failed to pass along the "Gospel Football" before they died.
Then for 1,500 years the Roman Catholic Church did not just fumble the Gospel Football -- it never had it (although they thought they did). All souls were lost as a result.
One day a monk read his Bible (as 1000s of monks had meticulously copied every jot & tittle and read for many centuries) and found the Gospel Football contained in the phrase Sola Fide -- "a theological novum" (Circa 1520). Once folks could:
(a.) afford to own a copy of the Bible (they were the price of a house before the printing press), (b.) knew of this theological novum and (c.) abandoned the Roman Catholic Church,
they were saved.
However, does this common Protestant summary square with Jesus' promises?
(1.) "I will never leave you nor forsake you"
and
(2.) "The gates of Hell shall not prevail against [The Church]."
Perhaps Rev. Stott contemplated these 1,500 years when the Gospel Football was "lost" and how a monk "found" it.
Bibliophile wrote: Since no bishop has weighed-in: You speculate that Stott, JPII, all dead Catholics, Orthodox and Anglicans are in Hell. Name one Protestant, who, for certain, beyond a shadow of a doubt, is in Heaven.
Biblio, I call myself neither Protestant, nor Roman Catholic, nor Orthodox. I am a saint, a believer, a disciple. I have been born again by the Spirit of God, by the will of God not man. This living Lord Jesus Christ has enlightened my mind, brought life to my spirit, renewed my thinking. I am a new creature in Christ, and the old has passed away, all things have become new. The Spirit of Christ resides WITHIN ME. This is the spirit which testifies with my spirit that I am a child of God. If you have never known this experience, in either of your church attendances, you are still hellbound, and no matter how many times you attend church, or whatever church you attend, or whatever theology you adhere to, it will avail you nothing if your sins are not forgiven and you have not been made a new creature in Christ. You are still therefore in Adam and need salvation.
I perceive that in your speech, you make little of Christ, and much of your works.
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Craig Musselman | 7/6/2009
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stever: "
lameness spotter
stever's view is that water mixed with a fatal dose of..."
