TEST YOUR BIBLE KNOWLEDGE

THE FOLLOWING QUIZ IS FOR THOSE WHO:

-CONSIDER THEMSELVES STUDENTS OF THE BIBLE

-CARRY THEIR BIBLES TO CHURCH

-PROFESS TO GO ONLY BY THE BIBLE AND NOT THE TRADITIONS OF MEN

-Where in the Book of Acts do we read about a congregational form of church government or independent congregations not accountable to any hierarchy?

-In what book of the New Testament can we find someone who wanted to be saved being told to bow his head, say a sinner’s prayer, invite Jesus into his heart and then on the basis of this being assured that he now has eternal life?

-Where in the Bible do we read about an invitation at the end of a service where people are invited to come to an altar or come shake the pastors hand to be saved or to join the church?

-What verse or verses in the Bible tell us that the Bible contains all there is and all that is needed for the Christian to know and practice?

-Where in the Bible do we read about the age of accountability?

-Where does St. Paul teach that the Lord’s Supper consists of crackers and grape juice?

-Where does the Bible teach that the bread and wine only represent the Body and Blood of Christ?

-Where does the Bible teach that baptism is merely symbolic and should be practiced only as a witness to the world or an act of obedience and should be limited to an age of accountability?

-Where does the Bible teach that different churches can hold different beliefs and practices and still all be considered one Church?

-Where in the Book of Acts or any of the epistles do the apostles teach that the Church is invisible?

- Where does the Bible teach that in the Church each individual Christian is autonomous and that private/personal interpretations are a good or acceptable thing?

- Which version of the Bible did the Church use for the first 300 years after the apostles?

PRINCESS DIANA – THE MOVIE

            I heard there is a movie in the making, if not already released, about Princess Diana.  I can understand why Hollywood and the world would glorify her and want to perpetuate her memory.

What I don’t understand is why anyone who claims to be a Christian would do the same or be interested in seeing such a movie or in any way lending credence or credibility to her fame.  In years past, her actions would have won her a place in the slut category.  She was a horrible example of a mother, a wife, a woman and a public figure.  She should not be glorified or held up as an example for anyone and Christians, of all people, should not perpetuate, encourage or promote her glorification in the world.  “But don’t we all have our sins, failings and shortcomings?” someone will ask.  Of course we do.  But there is a big difference between someone who falls and turns with repentance and remorse and is ashamed for their sins, determined to forsake them, and someone who exhibits no shame and no remorse but persists and seems to revel in and enjoy a life of immorality, unfaithfulness and flaunting of their sins, which they don’t even recognize as sins.  "But isn't God a forgiving God?"  Yes, He is but people reject His forgiveness when they reject His commandments and persist without repentance.

St. Paul, in his epistle to the Romans, speaks of those who find pleasure in the sins of others by which they themselves become guilty.  If Christians took this seriously how many TV shows and movies would be turned off in favor of some spiritually profitable reading or prayers?  Probably most.

DOGMA – The Enemy of Contemporary Christianity

So as to guard the right path of faith, The Church has had to forge strict forms for the expression of the truths of faith: it has had to build up the fortresses of truth for the repulsion of influences foreign to the Church.  The definitions of truth declared by the Church have been called, since the days of the Apostles, dogmas.   In the Acts of the Apostles we read of the Apostles Paul and Timothy that as they went through the cities, they delivered them the decrees (dogmata) for to keep, that were ordained of the apostles and elders which were at Jerusalem (Acts 16:4; here the reference is to the decrees of the Apostolic Council which is described in the fifteenth chapter of the Book of Acts).  [Here we see in the early Church there is no concept of independent churches or congregational autonomy.  Everyone was not doing their own thing. All local churches were subject to the decrees of the apostolic council.]  Among the ancient Greeks and Romans the Greek word dogmat was used to refer a) to philosophical conceptions, and b) to directives which were to be precisely fulfilled.  In the Christian understanding, “dogmas” are the opposite of “opinions,” that is, inconstant personal conceptions.

Excerpt from Orthodox Dogmatic Theology by Father Michael Pomazansky published by St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood.