SHARI | 2006-01-22
Shari says,
"Early Christians were probably just as gullable as now, but I don't think sterility was St. Pauls ideal. He wrote in I Cor. that husbands and wives were to give each other what was due and not to defraud one another. He also wrote in I Timothy about seducing doctrines, forbidding to marry, etc.and advised young widows to remarry. I think that Manichaeism was a heresy wasn't it? I know that Marxism certainly is, and it makes me nauseous to listen to those who try to make it sound so Christian. A big burden for whites is contraception. We are the only ones who use it, so we can pay more and more for welfare and war. Getting married and having their own children is very hard for those who still want to do that, to put together. I also think that there are more young singles, who would like that thanyou might think."
Comment by Shari
Shari, here is a quotation from 1Timothy. I am using
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/1timothy-kjv.html
11) But the younger widows refuse: for when they have begun to wax wanton against Christ, they will marry;
[12] Having damnation, because they have cast off their first faith.
But in 1 Timothy Paul also says that a bishop SHALL have ONE wife.
You might say, "Paul, make up your mind" if you didn't know that, unile Peter, one thing Paul had no trouble doing was making up his mind.
Jesus told the rich young man, "If you would be PERFECT, sell all you have, give it to the poor and follow me."
When the young man refused, Jesus didn't curse him. If a man could be perfect, Jesus would not have been there.
As I have said before, Jesus kept referring to us as his sheep. Very few people nowadays have much experience with sheep. Jesus was surrounded by sheep all his life.
I have had enough experience with sheep to know that Jesus was not exactly bowled over by our intelligence. Sheep make a brain-damaged snake look like a genius.
Sheep will follow the Judas goat into the slaughter.
Perfect? No, I kind of doubt Jesus thought we were perfect.
I said that Paul's IDEAL was sterility. But Paul like Jesus was aware that people are not perfect. Most of his guidance was how to behave if you are NOT perfect. So what he says sounds contradictory.
Maybe it's a lifetime in politics, but I see no contradiction.
"A bishop shall have ONE wife."
That fascinates me because one thing Rome and Orthodoxy agree on is that a bishop shall have NO wife. An Eastern Orthodox priest is allowed to be BE married, but not to marry. Once he is ordained, he cannot marry, so most unmarried Orthodox seminary students graduate and then put off their ordination until they have married.
But in the Orthodox Church only a priest who has NEVER married can become a bishop. That severely limits the number of priests from whom a bishop and be selected.
Roman priests are forbidden to marry at all. So the talent pool from which Catholic bishops are selected is much larger than the one from which Orthodox bishops are selected. My own observation is that I have never met a Catholic bishop who was not highly intelligent, and the intelligence of Orthodox bishops does not impress me.
But both branches of the ancient church agre that a bishop, in direct defiance of Paul's words, must have NO wife.
All I said was that Paul's IDEAL was sterility. It fits in with MY theory.
If Popes and Patriarchs have trouble understanding it all, you sure can't take Ole Bob's opinions as Gospel.