The mystery of the Identites of the seven stars and the seven churches of Revelation

reply to post by lonewolf19792000

Thank you for those links. I see that the list of eras in the OP comes from the second link -the first link offers a different set. (Actually that difference, in itself, highlights how arbitrary these listings can be).

I'll tell you what made me think the list was odd. Paul and John, unquestioned leaders. Luther, Wycliffe, and even the legendary Waldo could be accepted as part of a "Protestant" line.
But if part of the function of a messenger is to fight apostacy, Arius is a very odd choice indeed. I would have counted Arius among the apostates. Including him in the list is rather like counting Goliath, rather than David, among the heroes of Israel. The author of that list ignores the fact that Luther and Wycliffe would have been ranged against Arius; they would have stood alongside Athanasius in that fight.
Similarly Russell. Since Russell effectively founded the Jehovah's Witnesses, who regard Arius as their hero, this makes me wonder whether that site is not covertly a Jehovah's Witness operation. I wonder who he thinks the 144,000 are.

PS I was right! I've just dug deeper and found the relevant chapter. "The John class" indeed! Yes, this is a Jehovah's Witness source.
PPS And I've only just noticed that the author uses "John Class" as his pen-name. Oh, very neat.

Originally posted by DISRAELI
reply to post by lonewolf19792000

 

Thank you for those links. I see that the list of eras in the OP comes from the second link -the first link offers a different set. (Actually that difference, in itself, highlights how arbitrary these listings can be).

I'll tell you what made me think the list was odd. Paul and John, unquestioned leaders. Luther, Wycliffe, and even the legendary Waldo could be accepted as part of a "Protestant" line.
But if part of the function of a messenger is to fight apostacy, Arius is a very odd choice indeed. I would have counted Arius among the apostates. Including him in the list is rather like counting Goliath, rather than David, among the heroes of Israel. The author of that list ignores the fact that Luther and Wycliffe would have been ranged against Arius; they would have stood alongside Athanasius in that fight.
Similarly Russell. Since Russell effectively founded the Jehovah's Witnesses, who regard Arius as their hero, this makes me wonder whether that site is not covertly a Jehovah's Witness operation. I wonder who he thinks the 144,000 are.

PS I was right! I've just dug deeper and found the relevant chapter. "The John class" indeed! Yes, this is a Jehovah's Witness source.
PPS And I've only just noticed that the author uses "John Class" as his pen-name. Oh, very neat.

edit on 23-11-2011 by DISRAELI because: Additional research

edit on 23-11-2011 by DISRAELI because: (no reason given)

Well i'm not a JW, but it does have some interesting bullet points in both sources. I can imagine that not all of the messengers were correct but i do agree with most of them. I think it's safe to say we should disregard anything that originated from the Roman Catholic Church being that they were the apostate element that used Christ's teachings to gain power and took the church in a direction it was never meant to go. Basically anytime i come to a source of conflict in my life i ask myself "what would Jesus do and how would he react?" and let that be my guide line. I definately think Martin Luther's heart was in the right place.

Roman Catholicism does alot of stuff i find scary specifically the whole goddess worhip thing they do for Mary and calling her the "Queen of Heaven" which is a name given to many pagan goddesses like Hera, Astarte and Ishtar. That and the way they have idols and sacrifice Christ everytime they take communion by "transmutation" of the bread and wine into his actual body and blood (thats disgusting to me and sounds like cannibalism)

reply to post by lonewolf19792000

I hold no brief for the Roman Catholics, but for me the Athanasian/Arian period and the whole Nicene period is too early to start talking about "the Roman Catholic Church".
This was still the whole church, and Arius was the one who was denying that Christ is God.
The list of messengers from that site is flawed because it is skewed by a bad theology.

Originally posted by lonewolf19792000
Roman Catholicism does alot of stuff i find scary specifically the whole goddess worhip thing they do for Mary and calling her the "Queen of Heaven" which is a name given to many pagan goddesses like Hera, Astarte and Ishtar. That and the way they have idols and sacrifice Christ everytime they take communion by "transmutation" of the bread and wine into his actual body and blood (thats disgusting to me and sounds like cannibalism)

On the communion issue I'm not sure if I'm right about this, but I think it is about offering our own lives to Christ. It's like the prodigal child coming home and being reconciled to the father and saying: "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son." By consuming the body and blood of Christ we are confessing that we can only be reconciled through Him. We're not sacrificing Christ to serve our personal ambitions; we're yielding ourselves to join with His body and blood as part of the Church. It's not about salvation from hell; it's about returning to obedience when we stray. That's why confession precedes communion.

Here is a quote from St. John Maximovitch:
The Church as the Body of Christ

We partake of the Body and Blood of Christ, in the holy Mysteries, so that we ourselves may be members of Christ's Body: the Church. This is not accomplished instantly. Fully abiding in the Church is already victory over sin and complete purification therefrom. To some degree everything sinful estranges us from the Church and keeps us out of the Church; this is why in the prayer read at confession over every penitent we have the phrase: "reconcile, and unite unto Thy Holy Church. " Through repentance a Christian is cleansed and united closely to Christ in partaking of the Holy Mysteries, but later the grime of sin again settles upon him and estranges him from Christ and the Church, and therefore repentance and communion are again necessary. As long as the earthly life of a man endures, up to the very departure of the soul from the body, the struggle between sin and righteousness goes on within him. However high a spiritual and moral state one might achieve, a gradual, or even headlong and deep fall into the abyss of sin is always possible. Therefore, communion of the holy Body and Blood of Christ, which strengthens our contact with Him and refreshes us with the living streams of the grace of the Holy Spirit flowing through the Body of the Church, is necessary for everyone. How very important communion of the Holy Mysteries is we see from the life of St. Onuphrius the Great to whom, as well as to other hermits dwelling in the same desert, angels brought Holy Communion; and in the life of St. Mary of Egypt we read that her final wish after many years of desert life was the reception of the Holy Mysteries. The lives of St. Sabbatius of Solovki and a multitude of others tell us similar things. Not in vain did the Lord speak and say: "Amen, amen, I say unto you, except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His Blood, ye have no life in you" 6:23). To partake of the Body and Blood of Christ is to receive in oneself the Risen Christ, the victor over death, granting to those with Him victory over sin and death. Preserving in ourselves the grace-filled gift of Communion, we have a guarantee and foretaste of the blessed, eternal life of the soul and body.

reply to post by cloudyday

On the communion issue I'm not sure if I'm right about this, but I think it is about offering our own lives to Christ. It's like the prodigal child coming home and being reconciled to the father and saying: "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son." By consuming the body and blood of Christ we are confessing that we can only be reconciled through Him. We're not sacrificing Christ to serve our personal ambitions; we're yielding ourselves to join with His body and blood as part of the Church. It's not about salvation from hell; it's about returning to obedience when we stray. That's why confession precedes communion

Yeah but the thing is. Jesus said if you take communion and you do not have your heart right and have him in mind then you bring damnation onto yourself. Like if you take communion and you do not recognize him for who he really is or put Mary above him its bad joo joo.

Originally posted by lonewolf19792000
reply to post by cloudyday

 

On the communion issue I'm not sure if I'm right about this, but I think it is about offering our own lives to Christ. It's like the prodigal child coming home and being reconciled to the father and saying: "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son." By consuming the body and blood of Christ we are confessing that we can only be reconciled through Him. We're not sacrificing Christ to serve our personal ambitions; we're yielding ourselves to join with His body and blood as part of the Church. It's not about salvation from hell; it's about returning to obedience when we stray. That's why confession precedes communion

Yeah but the thing is. Jesus said if you take communion and you do not have your heart right and have him in mind then you bring damnation onto yourself. Like if you take communion and you do not recognize him for who he really is or put Mary above him its bad joo joo.

I agree with that. But I tend to think a Christian could have all kinds of mistaken beliefs and practices, and Jesus is so loving that he will forgive anything. The only thing that damns us in communion (I think) is not surrendering our individual desires and ambitions to Jesus and our neighbors, because that is refusing to come under the umbrella that Jesus is offering. I don't know if I'm right though. If I'm right it is only partially right.

Charles Taze Russell himself never claimed to be 7th angel. He was never a member of the Masons, and he was never a member of the Jehovah's Witnesses organization. The JW org did not exist while Russell was alive, and Russell spoke against such organizations; he also spoke against the kind of Armageddon that is taught by the JW organization. In effect, Russell's central message was almost the very opposite of that given by the JWs.