I know it has been some time since I’ve written but school is ending and I had to write on this before it got even later.
Now I just got off of work and I came to my car and found this card on my car that says” shock your grandma go to church this Easter” with a picture of a shocked grandma on the side
Now let’s really think about this a gimmick to get people to come to church as if the Gospel of our Lord isn’t enough. I could never see
Now if this wasn’t enough there’s more
Now here is what the back of the card said “Maybe you haven’t been to church in years! This Easter, why not try something surprisingly different. At The connection you’ll find a warm and friendly atmosphere with great music. Enjoy your favorite espresso or cappuccino while experiencing a practical and encouraging message. You’ll hear people just like you sharing how the message of Easter has helped their marriages, addictions, personal loneliness and much more. So whether or not your mom or grandma used to drag you to church, decide for yourself to stop in this Easter. You’ll be shocked how great church can be!”
I want to be completely honest this is a joke. I really don’t need to say anything about this it shows it’s self to be foolish but I will speak on it for the sake of those that believe this. Why is it that everyone wants to show how different they are then everyone else? Look over here this is exciting and fun lets go here and then that runs out and you move on to the next thing. The church is to be that standing and never changing entity, the church dose not change for the world but the world changes to the Church. Now next how is it that music is the biggest thing today look how loud we can be. Where has the reverence for Christ gone? This is no party, but a time to be thinking of Him who died for thee and someone tell me what is going on with the espresso and cappuccino during service all this is another protestant coffee bar talk show where is the worship of God. Then this thing end off on telling how everyone will be telling how great Jesus is and how He can fix your life and make you happy. What foolishness the Christian life is suffering and loss if not physical then the spiritual side will cause suffering. And then it tells how great church can be …….. why do we say things to grab people in with emotional things let appeal to peoples excitement and thrill this is something that I can never believe was done before the 1960’s if not later but this is again a poster child of the reformation, we do what we want and not man tells me what to do, all I need is my bible and God but this was so far from the true Church here is what St. Ignatius of Antioch says
“Since therefore I have, in the persons before mentioned, beheld the whole multitude of you in faith and love, I exhort you to study to do all things with a divine harmony, while your bishop presides in the place of God, and your presbyters in the place of the assembly of the apostles, along with your deacons, who are most dear to me, and are entrusted with the ministry of Jesus Christ. He, being begotten by the Father before the beginning of time, was God the Word, the only-begotten Son, and remains the same for ever; for "of His kingdom there shall be no end," says Daniel the prophet. Let us all therefore love one another in harmony, and let no one look upon his neighbor according to the flesh, but in Christ Jesus. Let nothing exist among you which may divide you; but be united with your bishop, being through him subject to God in Christ.
As therefore the Lord does nothing without the Father, for says He, "I can of mine own self do nothing," so do you, neither presbyter, nor deacon, nor layman, do anything without the bishop. Nor let anything appear commendable to you which is destitute of his approval. For every such thing is sinful, and opposed[to the will of] God. Come together into the same place for prayer. Let there be one common supplication, one mind, one hope, with faith unblameable in Christ Jesus, than which nothing is more excellent. Do you all, as one man, run together into the temple of God, as unto one altar, to one Jesus Christ, the High Priest of the unbegotten God.”
Do nothing without the Bishop but who cares this doesn’t mean anything. Anyone is a bishop well this isn’t true only those in the succession of the apostles passed on by the laying on of the hand from bishop to bishop is thus.
Cyprian of
"[T]he Church is one, and as she is one, cannot be both within and without. For if she is with [the heretic] Novatian, she was not with Cornelius. But if she was with Cornelius, who succeeded the bishop [of Rome], Fabian, by lawful ordination, and whom, beside the honor of the priesthood the Lord glorified also with martyrdom, Novatian is not in the Church; nor can he be reckoned as a bishop, who, succeeding to no one, and despising the evangelical and apostolic tradition, sprang from himself. For he who has not been ordained in the Church can neither have nor hold to the Church in any way" (Letters 69[75]:3 [A.D. 253]).
So this is just one quote talking about apostolic succession from bishop to bishop and the part about priesthood to let you know before you flip out thinking you found a loop hole it is speaking of the priesthood of the clergy the right to do sacramental things just like the priesthood of the levities but they all didn’t do the same thing.
Lord never let the Catholic (continuing Anglicans, orthodox and Romans) Church fall into this. Lord let you people once again come back to the historical faith and way of the Fathers.
By: Allen Bailey aspirant of the Anglican
