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I'm pointing out that the phrase "knew them socially" is awkward English, and I'm not sure what you mean to contribute to the sentence by adding "socially." So if native speakers of classical Greek reading these documents understood Mary to be ever-virgin, but you, not a native speaker, reading...

Psalm 103:20 at least should contradict any argument that "the saints in heaven can't hear us or are too busy worshiping God to pay attention to us," which are arguments I've heard against the intercession of saints. As for pre-Incarnation Jewish belief in the intercession of the saints, you're...

My point is that arguing about canonization is irrelevant; even if we restrict the discussion to saints as the term for all Christians as used in the Bible, the doctrine of the intercession of the saints still stands. Whether you call the same man "Athanasius" or "Saint Athanasius," the debate...

What does "knew them socially" mean? I threw out "stepbrother" as a possible usage of ἀδελφόι. No. Christianity is not a cargo cult. We didn't receive the Bible without knowledge of a continuous history of the Church, and we know that the consensus of the early Church, and indeed even the...

Indeed, we should use the definitions of the actual words, not external ones. The term is ἀδελφοί, specifically. Sure. Agreed. Let's be specific - "familial" is a vague term. Cousins are family, second cousins are family, stepbrothers are family, and half-brothers are family. All of these...

I have to wonder if people like that actually believe what they're saying - either they haven't read any of John Wesley's writings or they're intentionally distorting them, and I'm not sure which is worse.

I said the Nicene Creed doesn't place that requirement on people, which it doesn't. Sure, paedobaptists have no problem with adult converts needing to make their own profession of faith, in the same way that adults in the Old Testament could profess their own desire to be circumcised...

I understand that, but the intercession of saints pertains to all saints, not just canonized saints. Canonized saints are a subset of all of the saints. So an argument against the canonization of saints is not an argument against the intercession of saints; even if there were no canonized...

If your comment somehow relates to my post, I'd be happy to address it, but as it is, you've just posted a couple of passages that you seem to think are prooftexts of credobaptism. Maybe you'd like to expand on your wondering?

This is correct, which is why we need to look at these matters keeping in mind the culture, language, and audience of the original writers. In Greek and Aramaic, it was common to refer to a brother, stepbrother, cousin, or other kin as "brother," ἀδελφόσ. Notably, the early Greek church...

I'm talking about the belief in Mary's perpetual virginity in general, not just within Catholicism. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, said that the perpetual virginity of Mary is one of the essential parts of the Christian faith in his Letter to a Roman Catholic. It is a belief held widely...

1. That's not the correct way to use "begs the question." Question begging is when you skip over asking a question and assume the conclusion, not when a statement leads to another question. 2. Your reasoning begs the question: how do you know that the perpetual virginity of Mary originates in an...

This is why the "Protestants have 33,000 denominations" line is going away in higher level apologetics, because there is increasing awareness that the figure comes from this source (and is not even correctly cited, because as the quoted portion says, the 33,000 figure represents all of...

You are confusing canonized saints with saints in general. Anyone who is a true Christian, which implies that he being sanctified or made holy (sanctus), can be called a saint, but most Christians have enough humility not to describe themselves as holy while on Earth. Those in Heaven are...

I'm not saying there is, just wondering if there has ever been a defense of statues made that would shed light on why they began to be favored over two-dimensional iconography. Right, and what I'm getting at is why they became the norm in the first place. This seems like something the East...

Agreed, the AI-only posts are obvious, low-effort, and honestly obnoxious. I try to avoid engaging with them as much as possible, and I wouldn't be surprised if a forum rule is put in place in the future banning things like AI exegesis of Scripture.

I was talking with an Eastern Orthodox priest earlier this week about my struggle deciding between Catholicism and Orthodoxy, and one of the things about Western Christianity he said was an innovation was the use of statues instead of icons. As I understand it, statues are a form of iconography...

Believer's baptism, i.e. credobaptism, which says that infants and young children can't be baptized, is not in the Bible, and I'm not sure that you meant to agree to believer's baptism since it denies Catholic doctrine (as well as Orthodox, Anglican, Lutheran, and Presbyterian doctrine - really...

Trump was not my choice in this year's primary due to his soft stance on coronavirus fearmongering in 2020, but there's absolutely zero chance after this show trial that the Republican nominee is going to be anyone other than him. To nominate anyone else would only give legitimacy to this...

Their speed is impressive. I'm sure we'll see more African conferences taking the same path in the coming months. Honestly I'm amazed that the American liberals were naive enough to think that regionalization would make up for their promotion of sin as official UMC policy. Of course the...