₦airaland Forum

Ihedinobi: . . . .

Again, why should the absence of the token (which can be the signed marriage certificate or whatever serves as proof in a given culture) at the time of dissolution matter when it didn't at the formation? After all, if one can start the union by consenting to be married with no ceremony whatsoever (remember my explanation of 'ceremony), one should be able to also walk away by deciding to stop being married. . . ..

Consider this 'amusing' but very serious matter: some Islamic marriages can be dissolved, i.e. one party can divorce the other, by simply saying "talak" ('I divorce you') three times!

^^^ PS in the scenario above, consider that the two sets of parents had not even yet met ---- or at least mutually agree i.e. agree as between one another!

We already had "the Bible" waaaaaaay before the 4th century; Christians who were mostly not Roman Catholics had already seen to that.

I think Goshen in particular (and any other person following the line) would need to be clear on what is meant by having sort sought "parental consent".

"Parental consent" could fall well short of "bethrothal" and well short of anything you would call "marriage".

The couple take one weekend to visit the intended bride's parents --- they consent; the couple go the following weekend to seek consent from the intended groom's parents ----- they consent.

So, from our understanding of the biblical teaching, can they start sleeping together?

bolaino: I had to comment on this thread, @goshen360, I respect u as an individual and as somebody who teaches well, but be warned do not go about teaching false doctrines to gullible christians on nairaland, lest the wrath of God fall on u,

Our lord jesus said that it's easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one letter of the law to become invalid,luke 16 v 17, mathew 5 v 18-19, and also apostle paul told us in 2 timothy 3 v 16, that all scripture is inspired by God, so I don't see what all the fuss is about, @goshen the other day you said sex between two unmarried people who are engaged is not a sin, now u have come again, pls be careful of what u teach, cos on the last day heretics would be thrown into the lake of fire,

bolaino: lol, no be laffin mata ooo, this is serious, his teachings are becoming more strange everyday, and people could be easily misled if it's not handled properly.

Did someone hijack your user name (here or or on another thread)?

Otherwise how do you move from being a "freethinker" (possibly meaning atheist?) saying Jesus is fictional in the link below to calling Jesus "lord" on this thread?

https://www.nairaland.com/1240536/ugly-truth-jesus

Kay 17: . . . . Hope you realize that all persons are Beings. So in essence you are saying three Beings in One Being. That doesn't add up. A Being is indivisible.

And there are "beings" that are not human ---- and do not have to conform to the pattern that a human is a "being"?

Are there "beings" that are not even living?

As I really do not want to get heavily involved here, let me leave you with this thought:

- normal e.g. regular human beings
- ab-normal e.g. siamese twins (as Ihedinobi pointed out)
- supra-normal e.g. ?? ?? ?? (of course you may choose to think that supra-normal is impossible)

Ihedinobi: . . . . . By the way, you've got mail, big bro.

What needs to be done has just been done, my bros.

Refer to the red bolded in paragraph VI above.

Yes indeed! There is only one Church, the catholic Church i.e. the catholic Church referred to below!

Westminster Confession of Faith

Chapter XXV
Of the Church

I. The catholic or universal Church, which is invisible, consists of the whole number of the elect, that have been, are, or shall be gathered into one, under Christ the Head thereof; and is the spouse, the body, the fulness of Him that fills all in all.

II. The visible Church, which is also catholic or universal under the Gospel (not confined to one nation, as before under the law), consists of all those throughout the world that profess the true religion; and of their children: and is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, the house and family of God, out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation.

III. Unto this catholic visible Church Christ has given the ministry, oracles, and ordinances of God, for the gathering and perfecting of the saints, in this life, to the end of the world: and does, by His own presence and Spirit, according to His promise, make them effectual thereunto.

IV. This catholic Church has been sometimes more, sometimes less visible. And particular Churches, which are members thereof, are more or less pure, according as the doctrine of the Gospel is taught and embraced, ordinances administered, and public worship performed more or less purely in them.

V. The purest Churches under heaven are subject both to mixture and error; and some have so degenerated, as to become no Churches of Christ, but synagogues of Satan. Nevertheless, there shall be always a Church on earth to worship God according to His will.[12]

VI. There is no other head of the Church but the Lord Jesus Christ. Nor can the Pope of Rome, in any sense, be head thereof; but is that Antichrist, that man of sin, and son of perdition, that exalts himself, in the Church, against Christ and all that is called God.

Hallelujah! Thank God for the catholic Church; thank God for the Church catholic.

Some people will sooner believe that it is possible to have an 'alien' being with two heads than that it is possible that God, the Ultimate and Supreme Being, could be a being existing in three persons.

On a lighter note: Christians beware the slippery slope of dubious interpretations leading to one kind of 'marriage' that some Moslems practice aka [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikah_%27urfi]Urfi Marriage[/url].

Goshen360: ^ Well, the bold in RED is the reason why some\many thinks I teach error on this subject. However, to your question, I covered that in my first response as quoted below.

1. Actually, I am not satisfied that you covered it.

2. In what you have said - that if the two are 'absolutely' sure they want to get married they can therefore start sleeping together - my view is that you are still wrong!

3. The reason you are wrong is that your interpretation is very inadequate and is rather simplistic; it does not take account of the cultural background against which even the New Testament passages, which are in fact reiterating the Old Testament passages, were written.

4. The requirement is that a woman must be a virgin at the time of marriage; in that society, marriage did not occur until at least bethrothal (never mind all the 'if you sleep with her, potentially including ra.pe, she becomes your wife' misunderstandings).

5. If you had even said that after 'bethrothal', a couple can sleep together, it might be somewhat understandable. But even that is questionable; cf. e.g. Joseph and Mary were bethrothed.

6. Actually, till today, virginity at the time of marriage is still a very serious matter in Middle Eastern countries; although much hypocrisy and difficulty surrounds the requirement. {I found this something fascinating to try and understand when I lived briefly in the Middle East}.

7. It is true that 'porneia' is difficult to translate; hence some English translations use the equally somewhat opaque 'sex.ual immorality'; but that does not give us the liberty of very careless and potentially harmful (mis)interpretation.

@Goshen360

If a man and woman commit to one another and decide to marry, then start sleeping with each other, then something happens and they do not get married?

How do we look at the situation?


Later on, if either of them finds another person and they too decide to get married, can they start sleeping with one another?

Bear in mind, that I am very aware of the difficulties of interpretation of both the Greek 'porneia' and the English 'fornication'!

I think caution is required about easily or readily "discarding" the Old Testament.

Romans 13:9-10

For the commandments, "You shall not commit adultery," "You shall not murder," "You shall not steal," "You shall not bear false witness," "You shall not covet," and if there is any other commandment, are all summed up in this saying, namely, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." 10 Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

Edit: I see belatedly that Goshen included the pasaage in his last post!

Au revoir!

^^ Yep, the distortion of truth by the Roman Catholic Church and its apologists was seen and pointed out.

And of course it is not new for non-Christians to accuse others of not being "Christian".

striktlymi: I actually thought you were a Christian! Sorry for my mistake!

When Frosbel call you people pagans, one feels sorry for you people and occasionally comes to your defence.

Anyway, if by "Christian" you mean a Roman Catholic or one who submits to the authority of the "Roman pontiff", of course not!

^^^ Yes, it is indeed very bad that the Roman catholic Church and its apologists are distorting the truth -- in a number of respects actually.

^^ And if you have no interest why bother respond?

And having responded why not tell us the true teachings of the Roman Catholic Church on those two matters?

At least then we'd have something to compare my post to.

Anyigala: Before the distruction of Jerusalem in 70AD by Roman Empire,almost all Christians have left the city. Alexndra, Antioch, Corinth and Rome were the 4 centres of the early Christians with the same tradition, teaching and liturgy. Each centre has its own Bishops (I mentioned St Jerome and Bishop of Antioch from 70 -107AD) all directly or indirectly subject to Bishop of Rome hence Pope Clement telling off the Church in Corinth when they had Schism.
Its worth noting that there were theological debates but not one single Church father/Bishop challenged the authority of the Church of Rome when She exercises its influence or power of them. This topic is a beyond the scope of this tread, i have to specifically explain what the Early Church fathers believed the Church of Rome to be and all the intricate details which will probably take forever to do.
It is also worth mentioning that Holy Spirit didn't stop working after the Acts of the Apostles, it continued, guiding the Church to define the doctrine of Holy Trinity which was not defined or expanded in the NT.
Finally, the Churches in all the verses you mentioned were all Catholic, do they practice all we do now? No. Just like they don't know much about the Trinity then. They do have the Eucharist which is the summit of all Christians(Catholic) until the reformation.
St Jerome used Catholic to refer to the whole Christians at that time since there where no divisions hence all are one Universal Church "Catholic". "Roman" in Catholic Church is a very recent thing, all official documents of the Church has NO "Roman Catholic" in them. Catholic Church is Catholic Church, the Roman was probably used to affirmn that the whole Church is with the Roman Bishop.
If you wouldn't mind, could you tell me the kind of Church/Christianity that was in existance from 30AD to 1500AD and the difference between them and the Catholic Church of today. It will also be helpful to back your story up with historical facts.

There is plenty of falsehood in this post as to almost make the few useful things in it worthless.

1. Young/new Christian groups wrote to people who were more 'advanced' in the faith for advice and guidance. This never meant that Clement had any power or jurisdiction. If you want to make such claim for Clement then what about Polycarp who was similarly approached and wrote guiding letters similarly as Clement?

2. It is totally false to claim that others did not challenge the "authority" of the Bishop of Rome. First of all, the bishops of Rome did not initially claim any "jurisdiction" or "power" to control the affairs of other churches even though those churches always accorded Rome a place of honour. Secondly, when some bishops of Rome started to claim "jurisdiction" they were often met with resistance from others. Polycrates and others spurned "pope" Victor on the Nisan/Easter matter; even Ireneaus who was bishop of Lyon told off the so-called "pope" Victor who in reality was not "pope" anything but simply bishop of Rome. Other great men especially the Africans like Cyprian of Carthage and Augustine of Hippo also rejected claims of authority by bishops of Rome. In fact, the Africans did not mess about; they bluntly said that decisions they had taken were not to be appealed upon "to the Church across the ocean" i.e to Rome.

3. It was, to a considerable extent, because of Rome's false claim of jurisdiction and the fact that the Eastern Churches kept to their position of rejecting the claims of "authority" by Rome that the Great Schism eventually occurred.

4. When Roman Catholic apologists claim that Rome always had "authority" over other churches, they are usually, erm, basically lying and twisting facts of history.

5. It is very un-Christlike, if not indeed anti-Christ, for one "Church" to be laying claims to "universal jurisdiction".

Daz All.

^^^ But there have been worse --- and there still will be worse! Even I pointed to one example recently: https://www.nairaland.com/1206607/surprised-no-one-posted

Meanwhile, such foolishness occurs in 'developed' countries too; only that if/when discovered, there will be apparent remorse and the public outcry will probably be bigger.

But in reality --- same ole same ole.

^^^ Na so!

A true free thinker does not need conspiracy theory websites and the like; he will be more discerning even if he looks at them. A true free thinker is always more likely to be a theist. Unsurprisingly, many of us Christians are true free thinkers.

^^^ The Roman Catholics really should know better; and the key point you are making really should be pretty clear to every Christian.

Even as a Church, the Roman Catholic Church clearly teaches error. They even tacitly admit it but I guess they are too keen on domination to be wholly honest.

Let us look at it from a couple of angles:

Infallibility:

Clearly, 'the Magisterium' is not infallible; the single example of the papal bull (and 'bull' is rather appropriate) that for salvation every one must be subject to the Roman Pontiff is something that Roman Catholics should be (and some of them are) ashamed of!

Another example: the Roman Catholic Church taught for ages that unbaptised children who die go to 'limbo' (some kind of half-way to edge of 'hell' in fact; and altogether different from 'purgatory'!); then circa 1992, they changed the teaching and said the teaching of 'limbo' is not correct!

The natural question to ask is: was the former teaching of limbo not supposed to be infallible? And is the changed teaching also 'infallible' ---- and maybe that one too can be changed in the future?

Now interestingly, some Roman Catholics would argue that the former teaching was not a 'dogmatic pronouncement' and so did not fall into the 'infallible' category! But of course ----- and so they fall into a trap of their own making!

In other words they admit that at least some, in fact the vast majority, of their Church's teachings are not infallible. Their Church can and does make mistakes in its teachings and interpretations of the Bible.

Even apart from 'the Magisterium' as a specific 'organ', would anyone dare say that all the sermons delivered daily/weekly etc by all the Roman Catholic priests all over the place are necessarily biblically, theologically or intellectually sound?

As far as I can see, the piece basically repeats what perceptive people have known for decades and basically says the same things 'every one' says: "there is a serious problem". Of course every one knows that.

The bone of contention on this thread has been: is that serious problem insoluble and, not only that, is it eternally insoluble?

From here https://www.nairaland.com/901638/why-many-black-people-including/2#10889512

Enigma: . . . . a true free thinker can believe in God and be a Christian, for example.

JeSoul: lol you're welcome sweetie. And thanks to Mukina2 as well...she's pretty fast with responding and getting nice topics to the frontpage.

and sure...when you make those threads tomorrow, submit it here and I'll forward it to the ogas on top . And you are not 'pestering' me at all...I'm here for ya'll . Godbless!

Et tu, Brute? lol lol

Bros, as you have realised you are touching on something a little complex. At the same time, I would say it is a reminder to us to always remember the complementary nature of Scripture and how apparent disharmony usually ultimately has a harmonious explanation --- even if we don't know it immediately or presently.

It is true that Jesus said we should not use the "Corban" excuse to avoid responsibility (specifically to parents). However, Jesus Himself pursued a course that led to his own "loss" to His parents. Even before His death, He was told on one occasion: 'your mother and brothers are looking for you'. One might think His answer dismissive of his mother and brothers --- if not putting things in proper context.

We must always be mindful of our responsibilities. Talking about harmony, the Scriptures also say that one who does not look after his family is hardly better than an infidel! The balance is that when necessity or the certain and known will of God places us on a course which means we may cause pain, we do the best to explain and to minimise the suffering. But if we are sure a particular course is God's will, we must do what we have to do.

Take even merely secular desires: an only child lives at home with his parents; they are poor; they love him so much; an opportunity arises for him to leave home and go some distance where he will only be able to communicate (better nowadays even with GSM) remotely; and when he might not be back home for a year or more; but he will be earning enough to feel good about himself and to help his parents . . . . .

By the way, shouldn't I have said 180 degrees U-turn or 360 degrees about-turn?

Any ways me and Maths eh? 7 x 13 = 28.

I'll get me coat.

^^^ And since the Ethiopean Bible has 81 books, it is the "original", it is "what was intended"; the Roman Catholic Bible is "a poor man's version"; it is "incomplete".

See how that works!

Ihedinobi: What can I say? Your passionate defence of the Roman Catholic Church might be getting in the way of your appreciation of what everyone you label a protestant says. I picked the issue up at "we still can't agree on how we are saved by Christ's death" to point out that such an agreement is not quite necessary but actually cosmetic.

You decided to straighten me out about it and I asked you to explain how it is the workings of the Death of Christ rather than the bare fact of His Death that saves us. Then you began to say something about how if it were merely Chriat's Death that saves, everyone should be saved and I was lost. First, I don't see how the statement answers my demand. Second, I don't understand even a little bit how the mere fact that Jesus died ought to save everyone if believing in it is how we are saved.

Perhaps you should try and stop acting like a mother bear whose cubs are threatened whenever anything is said that even remotely touches the Roman Catholic Church so that you can hear what people you're discussing with are saying.

Whatever, bro. You're tiresome to discuss with.

Well, a propos the "salvation" aspect, "the magisterium" has spoken below ---- "infallibly"! Except it wholly contradicts the Bible and what Jesus taught! So much for "the magisterium" and its sole and exclusive right to interpret the Bible!

“We declare, state, define and pronounce that it is altogether necessary to salvation for every human creature to be subject to the Roman pontiff.”

-- "Pope" Boniface VIII (Unam Sanctam)

Make I take style bookmark the thread; some parts of the OP actually made me laugh/smile.

And talking of the "magisterium", yeah the same "magisterium" including a supposedly "infallible" pope that produced the rubbish like the one below.

“We declare, state, define and pronounce that it is altogether necessary to salvation for every human creature to be subject to the Roman pontiff.”

-- "Pope" Boniface VIII (Unam Sanctam)

^^^ And Billy Graham is not part of "the Church" or "The Catholic Church"!

Nor is Wesley, Spurgeon, Bunyan, C S Lewis, Nigeria's Peter Akinola, Rowan Williams, Justin Welby . . . . . .