POST NEW TESTAMENT ‘DOCTRINE’ ?

This won’t be short and sweet.
It will be thick and heavy.
It will be totally serious.
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Most Christian theologians accept the Bible as we have it.
I am thankful that the Bible is indisputably the Word of God, especially as it clearly demonstrates the supernatural hand of God giving us His Word as He wanted us to have it.
Man did not decide what is in the Bible.
They did have a vote to affirm and accept what God had already established as His Word.
Then, other writings of ‘would be’, ‘wanna be’ scriptures were easily rejected and fall by the wayside of irrelevance compared to the Bible.
Examples—several books called “the gospel of ____”.
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Now consider the inconsistency of the church rejecting on the one hand certain writings in the early years of Christianity, while upholding on the other hand words of ‘the early church fathers’ as nearly infallible and revered and recited almost on a par with Scripture.
I say this because many people sitting in Christian and Catholic churches can’t identify what they hear or recite—can’t distinguish if it is God’s Words or man’s words ?
To reinforce the point—no one is even asking the question.
There is uniform acceptance of what the church says, without any counsel for the people to consult their own Bibles “to see if these things were so”.
I can say that from personal experience—thankfully decades ago now.
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The vast majority of ‘Christians’ believe what the church says is right, and believe what the early church fathers said is right.
People have heard it over and over for so long, and old theologians have passed it on to new theologians for so long, that it seems true—AND, it becomes impossible to question what has become, for all practical purposes, sacred.
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Now, specifically—the sacred cows of the ‘Christian’ church—

CREEDS
— The creeds were written after the Bible was complete—hmmm.
— Accept the Bible as written.
— Accept the Bible as read.
— No “additions, corrections, or deletions” ?—the Bible says so itself.
The creeds were written after the Bible was complete—hmmm.
— The creeds basically say the Bible is not clear enough, to say what we believe, or should believe.
— After decades of saying the creeds in church, I even noticed a glaring error right at the beginning.
— The creeds say, “God the Father created the heavens and the earth.”
— The Bible says, “. . . all things were made by Him, The Word, made flesh, Jesus.”
— The creeds got demoted severely in my mind from then on.
— You know, the creeds never were inspiring—just something you were supposed to revere and recite—contrast with inspiring Bible verses.
— If your church, any church, the church, must have a ‘creed’, just put a few Bible verses together and print that, recite that.
What can possibly go wrong with that ?—nothing
— Put a few, or many, man-made words together for your ‘creed’, your ‘mission statement’ (unique to your church ?), and print that and repeat that and repeat that.
What can possibly go wrong with that ?—anything

TRINITY
— The trinity was invented, not discovered in the Bible.
— The trinity was ‘created’ hundreds of years after the Bible was written.
— Many things can be said about the trinity—how it is ridiculous, ineffective, and damaging (search ‘trinity’ on this site).
— One example here—a few years ago, the first time I entered “explain the trinity” on the internet, it showed over 30 million responses, attempts.
— I have not tried to document this, but there may be more written to ‘explain’ the trinity (explain God) than the whole Bible itself.
— Can anyone show how any of the attempts to explain the trinity make it more clear—every one I’ve read makes it more complicated, calling for more attempts.
— Some of the explanations of trinity that I have listed are best described as laughable.
— Trinity is the colossal theological mistake of the church because theologians and preachers and teachers keep using it, and everybody keeps hearing it, and nobody ever questions it.
— It cannot be shown that trinity does any good.
— It can be shown that trinity does harm.
— Trinity does not help bring anyone to Jesus.
— USING BIBLE VERSES INSTEAD OF TRINITY WOULD PUT THE CHURCH’S MISSION AND MESSAGE MILES AHEAD.
— Trinity is the classic Post New Testament Doctrine.

BAPTISM
— Baptism is not like the universal mistakes of creeds and trinity.
— Baptism is perfectly clear in the Bible.
— Many churches and Christians practice baptism simply, just as the Bible says.
— But again, early on in Christianity the urge to add to the Bible took hold—with baptism.
— The church, that is the Catholic Church, with its newly acquired universal authority in Christianity, used infant baptism to strengthen its control over the people, starting at birth—implementing such doctrines through fear and coercion, claiming to hold everybody’s eternal welfare contingent on obeying the church.
— We know how this abuse of church authority, and others, persisted over a millennium and grew to absurdity through the Middle Ages (thus the Dark Ages) until the Reformation.
— Sadly, so sadly, Martin Luther and the Reformers did not complete the cleansing of God’s ‘house’, the church.
— The Catholic Church regrouped and entrenched deeper into their practices of control and adding to the Bible whenever their leaders see fit.
— And many of the new Protestant churches, particularly the one with Luther’s namesake, ended up all too similar to Catholicism, as in baptism (and robes and rituals).
— Believing for and speaking for the faith of another person at baptism, was invented by the church, and that is an unbiblical disaster (on the order of indulgences to buy forgiveness for others).
— The churches that practice this, publicly declare such baptism universally guarantees heaven, and they restate this at funerals — everyone hearing this may also receive false assurance of their own salvation.
— On the contrary, this misleading promise sends more people to hell than to heaven.

AUTHORITY
— There is a measure of caution addressing authority in the church.
— There is Biblical authority given to the church.
— Repentance for sin is grounds for declaring forgiveness for an individual.
— Unrepentance for sin calls for steps to deal with the individual.
— Universal public confessions, and universal public forgiveness are not Biblical—dangerous, irresistible abuse of authority.
— This leads to people depending on the church, and going to church, to get forgiveness and get right with God, continually.
— The church leaders inevitably develop a superiority, and the people inferiority (none will admit this, like other abuses of authority).
— Human nature uses authority to gain control, and the church exercises authority for control, with ‘divine’ sanction.
— In churches that do not include public confession and universal absolution for sin in their services, their overpowering style, music, momentum, may give the message that this is the way to worship, that this is the way to God, that you are right with God by participating.
— There is great danger in many churches today that the power of popularity leads to control, a sense of authority, that speaks for God, that must be from God, that takes care of things between us (for us).

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