Do Orthodox Believe In The Bible?

Do Orthodox Believe In The Bible?
Short answer? No. We believe in God!
We definitely do believe the Bible to be God's inspired word, the most important thing we have received from the early Church. In fact, it was the Church that gave us the Bible as we know it today.
Isn't that backwards? Isn't the Church based on the Bible?
The Bible didn't just fall from heaven with a table of contents on page one. The Church was alive and well for decades before the New Testament was even written - and for centuries before the canon was "canonized" by Orthodox bishops in the fourth century. The books that make up the Bible as we have it today were shared, assembled, and approved over time by the Orthodox Christian community.
Orthodoxy doesn't artificially set up Church or Tradition against Scripture - rather we recognize that the body of faith and practice passed on from generation to generation is an organic whole. The word "tradition" just means "that which was transmitted." Because the Scriptures are the most important part of that tradition, the early Christian Fathers always argued from Scripture - but they did not interpret that Scripture in isolation from the whole body of faith they'd received from their predecessors. As St. Paul wrote,
Stand fast and hold the traditions which you were taught, whether by WORD or our EPISTLE. (2 Thessalonians 2:15)
[From "Frequently Asked Questions" At Phil Thomson.net]

BEDFELLOWS?

Guess which one said:

Adolf Hitler .............................................................................................. Martin Luther

"The Jews deserve to be hanged on gallows, seven times higher than ordinary thieves"

"We ought to take revenge on the Jews and kill them."

"The blind Jews are truly stupid fools"

"Now just behold these miserable, blind, and senseless people."

"eject them forever from this country"

"they are nothing but thieves and robbers"

"What then shall we do with this damned, rejected race of Jews?"

"Such a desperate, thoroughly evil, poisonous, and devilish lot are these Jews"

"They are the real liars and bloodhounds"

"We are at fault for not slaying them."

"I shall give you my sincere advice: first to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them."

"Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed."

"Fifth, I advise that safe-conduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews."

"Burn down their synagogues, forbid all that I enumerated earlier, force them to work, and deal harshly with them"

"If this does not help we must drive them out like mad dogs"

"If I had to baptize a Jew, I would take him to the river Elbe, hang a stone around his neck and push him over with the words `I baptize thee in the name of Abraham'."

Answer:
Martin Luther Said ALL of these things
Adolph Hitler put Luther's word into action.

تحية الى بلدي الناطقه بالعربيه والاخوة والاخوات في المسيح.

تحية الى بلدي الناطقه بالعربيه والاخوة والاخوات في المسيح. ارحب بكم في متابعة والمشاركة في رحلتي الى عقيده. وأضم صوتي لك كجزء من الكنيسة الارثوذكسيه من انطاكيه حيث كنا اول ودعا المسيحيين. الله في المحافظة على هويته جميع القداسه البطريرك المسكوني بارثولومو في دمشق في سوريا

(Greetings to my Arabic speaking brothers and sisters in Christ. I welcome you to follow and share in my Journey To orthodoxy. I join you as a part of the Orthodox Church of Antioch where we were first called Christians. God preserve His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew in Damascus, Syria.)

Update: Read http://journeytoorthodoxy.blogspot.com/2009/06/why-we-leftwhere-we-went.html

JTO Reaches The 10,000th Visitor Mark!

10,000 Visits and counting! I am sure some of you will want to take credit for a few thousand of those, but it is remarkable that such a milestone has been reached. I have had the opportunity to meet people from all over the world and from every spectrum of belief. I have shared my journey both good and bad and felt the encouragement from those of you who have come this way. What a wonderful time these few years have been. This is just the beginning. Should the Lord will, we will reach # 20,000 in a much shorter time. Stay tuned and stay with me. I need you...

So Why The Funny Clothes?

When looking at Orthodoxy for the first time it is not uncommon to stumble on the most elementary of things. "So why the funny clothes? Why don't the priests just dress normal?" Okay, define "normal". This issue is most often posed by a Westerner, someone born in the West. Please forgive, but it is birthed out our of ignorant arrogance that presupposes that the world evolves around the West and anything else is not normal.

In the movie, Tombstone, Wyatt Earp is talking to his good friend Doc Holiday while dying. "I just want to have a normal life Doc," Wyatt says. In his deathbed wisdom Doc replies, "There ain't no normal life, Wyatt, there's just life. Now get about livin' it." There ain't no normal clothes either, there are just clothes and they vary according to the culture. The culture of he Kingdom of God on this earth is not of this world. Clothes worn by the clergy have as their purpose not to make a man stand out but to hide the man so that God may be exalted. The idea that physical matter is evil is foreign to the church, in fact it is heretical. Matter is of God and sanctified for him. This includes the clothes worn in worship. Such has its roots in the Judaic Temple worship from which Christianity was birthed. The Orthodox Temple itself is designed to pattern such. There is the outer court, the inner court and the Holy of Holies. In place of the Torah in the Holy of Holies, is the Word Himself-Jesus Christ-in the Eucharist.

"This emphasis on sensory involvement has its basis in the Orthodox and thoroughly Biblical conviction that it is the whole world, and not only man's soul, that will be transfigured - "saved" - when Christ establishes His Kingdom at the end of time. The Liturgy is the anticipation and conditional realization here and now of that promised end. Far from denying God's material creation, it sanctifies it. The Eucharist itself is proof of this. However, the beauty of the Liturgy is of a kind that is consistent with the Church's vision of that transfigured world."

Here is a quick glimpse of matter that is sanctified to God. See the Vestments, the incense, the Eucharist:




Vestments have evolved somewhat over the 2000 years the church has existed but every garment with their varying shapes, coverings and colors are designed with reason and message. In the Orthodox Liturgy, physical matter is sanctified not held in disdain. No clergy dares approach the altar, where the mystical presence of Christ Himself is present, in common clothes, blue jeans, Hawaiian shirt, etc. Not even the Western suit and tie will suffice. The office of Bishop, Priest and Deacon are set aside and sanctified so as to lead all the people to the altar of Holy Trinity.

Study the meaning of the vestments and you will see the gospel of Emmanuel, God is with us, visibly displayed. Here are a couple of sites for a more thorough look:

http://www.orthodoxchristian.info/pages/vestments.htm
http://www.roca.org/OA/32/32f.htm
http://www.annunciationgoc.com/worship09b3.htm

That's why the funny clothes. By the way, why do many protestant clergy wear that funny, skinny piece of cloth around their necks that first appeared in 1860 as a sign used of British aristocracy? Who designed the TIE anyway? What significance does that have in worship?? Now that's funny.

Update From Our Beloved Brother-Father David Moretti

Moretti Update: Summer 2008

To all who are dear to us and follow our nomadic lifestyle!

Christ is in our midst! He is and ever shall be!

Well here it is June 27, 2008 and while most of my fellow graduates are LONG GONE our family remains here in Northeast Pennsylvania. We have found out from our beloved Bishop MARK that we are to be assigned to Saint George Orthodox Church in Terre Haute, Indiana.

We will be making our move within the next two weeks and our first official weekend there will be for the Feast of Saint Elijah (July 20th)! You see! There are no accidents. As the God-father to Skyler Elijah this day, of course, has special meaning to our family. We are also ecstatic about being back in the Midwest!

The parish has recently celebrated its 80th Anniversary and though we are already working on revising the website, here is the current one. It is also providential that Saint George is one of the very few parishes in the Antiochian Archdiocese that actually has a rectory. Given the last three years have been "sans-income" it is going a real blessing to have a home without having to search or have to come up with a down-payment!

Please keep us in your prayers as we make this transition and pray for the community of Saint George, our new home!

Love, In Christ,

Father David, Presvytera Diane, Anthony, Sofia, Theo, Gecky, Rob & Jeannie

Praying To The Saints

{An excerpt from Prayer And The Departed Saints By David C. Ford, Ph.D
Full Treatment on this subject available on line HERE from Conciliar Press}

Question: But doesn't the Bible say, "For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus" (1 Timothy 2:5)? Why do we need to ask the saints to pray for us?

Answer: Yes, Christ Jesus, both Man and God, is the only One who has reconciled fallen humanity to God the Father by His reconciling and redeeming life, death, and resurrection. But this does not mean that we never ask others to pray for us! We ask the departed saints for their prayers in the same way we ask our fellow Christians on earth to intercede for us. Since the departed remain alive in Christ, why should they cease to express their love and concern for us through prayer? Freed from the concerns of day-to-day survival on earth, unencumbered with the sinful tendencies of the flesh, and far more intimately knit together with Christ than we are, the departed are able to intercede for us much more frequently and powerfully than our friends on earth can pray for us. Those in heaven are able to do continuously what we on earth long to do, but usually only manage to do weakly and sporadically. No wonder, then, that Christians from the earliest days have asked the departed for their prayers. This in no way means that we can only reach Christ by going through the saints, as if they are absolutely necessary intermediaries between us and God. Such an idea is completely foreign to Orthodoxy. Saint Paul clearly states, "Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God . . . let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need" (Hebrews 4:14-16). But just because we pray, on our own, directly to God, does not mean that we never ask other people for their prayers! Indeed, we are commanded many times in the Scriptures to pray for one another. Saint Paul says to Timothy, "Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men" (1 Timothy 2:1; see also Colossians 4:2-4, Ephesians 6:18, etc.). And we are taught by our Lord Jesus that the power of prayer is greater when more people are praying together: "Again I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven" (Matthew 18:19). So, just as we feel comforted and strengthened when we ask friends, family, and Church members here on earth to intercede for us in a time of need, how much more can we feel comforted and strengthened when we also ask the Church in heaven for her prayers! (And we should not neglect to ask the angels for their prayers as well, since they are expressly sent to us as "ministering spirits" [Hebrews 1:14; also Psalm 91:11 and Isaiah 63:9]). Asking the saints, both those on earth and those in heaven,12 for their prayers, and asking the angels, too, can all be understood simply as gathering the greatest amount of prayer support possible in a time of need!

Question: Can the saints answer our prayers directly? Is it within their power to grant our requests?

Answer: The prayers of our brothers and sisters in Christ here on earth are only effective insofar as God answers them. It is the same with the intercessions of the saints in heaven for us. They can never answer prayers of their own accord or in their own power; they can only beseech Christ on our behalf. To imagine that prayer to the saints means that they can grant our requests apart from Christ is a totally unacceptable idea according to Orthodox theology and practice. So when we pray to the saints, the understanding is always clear that we are asking them to help us by praying to God, and not by their own power or actions apart from Him. For example, a hymn to Saint Nina (who as a young woman in the early fourth century brought the Christian Faith to Georgia, in southern Eurasia) concludes, "with the angels thou hast praised in song the Redeemer, praying constantly for us that Christ may grant us His grace and mercy".13 But as to their ability to hear our requests for their prayers, we ought not to limit the powers of spiritual perception of those who are now so intimately linked with God. If we on earth experience the help of the Holy Spirit praying in us and through us (Romans 8:26, 27), how much more must the Spirit's help be present in the saints in heaven? And we should remember that in heaven, in the spiritual realm, there are none of the limitations of time, space, or physical mortality which so restrict us as we live on earth.

Call No Man Father

Okay, if you are going to use Matt. 23:1 to say the Orthodox are wrong to call their ministers "father" then you must also call no man "teacher". That's the other part of the verse. Could it be that Christ was speaking in context to Jewish religious leaders? Paul refered to himself as "father." Was he disobeying the words of Christ? Look in to it.

Straight Talk On Icons

No, Orthodox don't worship icons. Don't be ridiculous and insulting. Here's the deal...Do you have a wallet or purse? Open it up. Pull out a photograph of someone. I assume the reason you have that photograph is because you want to remember the subject. Now, let's say in your remembering you are filled with a desire to express your love, honor and veneration by kissing the photo. In your kissing are you thinking about the paper and chemical compounds that make up the ink or are you thinking about the subject that is represented. The subject, of course. In thinking about the subject and in kissing are you worshiping the photo or the person it represents? Of course not. Icons have been referred to as the photo album of the Church. They are venerated not worshiped. They are used in worship as tools of reverence and honor to those who now worship in heaven. Just like in the photo you kissed. And because the Orthodox faith believes the subjects of the icons are still alive and they participate in the worship of heaven near the throne of God, then we can ask them to pray for us. And because the process of salvation or theosis (becoming like God in his attributes, not His essence), continues after we leave this earth, we can pray for them. No, it is not "prayers for the dead", it is prayers for those who have departed this earth and their mortal bodies. The reason venerating icons is so strange to you is that it is new to your experience. The walls of your house may have pictures hanging on them, well so do the walls of the church and they have for 100's of years.

Save the seals, kill the babies.

I had an interesting and spirited conversation last night with a young lady. She was a Peta member and expounded, with great passion, the need to be "humane" to animals and not slaughter them. She was driven by her belief but her reasoning was confused and slippery. After listening to her a bit, I told her I appreciated her compassion for living beings, but I had a question for her. "Are you pro-choice?" "Yes", she answered. "Well since you are so passionate about animals why don't you show at least the same passion for the millions of babies being slaughtered each year?" She was stunned and initially had no answer. She proceeded to attempt to rationalize her belief by talking not about the babies but about the mother's rights. "The babies would be raised in poverty", she said. "So kill them," I retorted. With each new flimsy piece of reasoning she offered, my retort was the same. I saw a bumper sticker that sums up the illogical thinking. "Save the seals, kill the babies."This illustration aside, the subject here isn't abortion, it is the art of skewed thinking. Skewed, unreasoned, passionate, dogma-driven thinking is pervasive when it comes to religious belief and denominationally derived theology.

"I believe that the Bible is the Word of God and the only source of doctrine and belief, but the Church who gave us the canon of scriptures became apostate right after Paul and the real church didn't resurface in its pure form until over 1500 years later." So you trust the Bible you have but not those who gave it to you? Save the seals, Kill the babies?

Which came first; the Bible or the Church? The Church. What did Paul say was the "Pillar and foundation of all truth? The Bible? No-The Church. ..."I write to you so that you will know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, the pillar and foundation of the truth." (1 Timothy 3:15) While the Scriptures are the inspired truth of God in human words, the Church is the pillar and ground of that truth (OSB p489)- the keeper, the preserver, the mainstay, the protector. The Bible in its present form didn't come into existence until about 400 years after the birth of the Church.

So here is the skew ideology, theology, methodology:

Premise One: The Church went apostate, dark, fell into sin and error and stayed that way until Martin Luther (Lutheren) or Alexander Campbell (Church of Christ) or John Smythe (Baptist) came to reestablish the purity of the faith some 1600 or 1800 years later.

Premise Two: We believe every word of the Bible and it is the sole source of doctrine and faith.

Conclusion: You trust a Bible that was birthed, collected, maintained and canonized by men that were apostate, dark, fell into sin and error.

Question: If you accept and trust the Bible why can't you trust the men who gave it to you? And if these men are trustworthy, why can't you trust their interpretations of the Bible they gave you?

It always seems elementary to say, but the Bible didn't just fall out of the sky in leather back or hardback form. The Bible was birthed, interpreted and preserved by breathing men of faith, many of whom went to a martyr's death. These same men, you consider to be erroneous, sinful men who were not the real or pure church...yet you accept their Bible. Save the seals, kill the babies. Does that really make sense?

To understand the argument I put forth, I encourage you to set aside theology for a moment and simply, but throughly, look at church history. Church history began 2000 years ago not 200-400 years ago. See if you can find that the Church has always been there, not in small faithful groups hiding in caves, but in the open, always present, always speaking, not divided, keeping the faith as given to us by the Apostles. There was only one church, one doctrine, one faith for the first 1000 years - then the Roman Catholic schism. (another subject- another time)

A dependable rule of thumb for determining truth is to look for "what was believed at all times, in all places, by all people." Where does it say in the Bible or in history that the Church that Christ said "the gates of hell shall not prevail against" died less than 30 years after his ascension into heaven and that He would send a man later on in the 1600's or the 1800's to make all things right? Let's just start with the 7 ecumenical counsels (Free podcast on the Counsels). These are the meetings where all the Bishops of the church met to define and defend the faith from heretics. Read and hear what these men said and did. Point out where they were in error. Was it the first counsel, the second? If the Church went astray only to surface another day, where and when did it happen? Read the volumes on The Early Church Fathers, some of whom were discipled by the Apostles themselves. Read their own words. Where did they go astray? To keep from throwing the seals out with the babies don't just rely upon partial historical interpretations such as "Constantine humanized the church and there it was lost." So one man had the power to kill the church? If this and other presuppositions cannot be validated in your study of history, perhaps the authentic Church is found in a place other than you thought-The Orthodox Church. "To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant. "