To: Jamey who wrote (39076 ) 12/7/2005 4:42:27 PM From: Cyprian Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 39621 >> The church is the heart and spirit of every born again Christian, Cyprian << and how do you know that you are "born again" dear santiago? >> Man made doctrine that is placed over the Scriptures is what you are referring to. << how would you know what is man-made and what came from Christ and his apostles? the apostles were men. yet what did Christ give to them? none other than the keys to the kingdom of heaven! And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. --Matthew 16:19 the simple fact is santiago, you are self-centered and don't want to submit to the teachings of Christ as passed on through his apostles. you want to make up your own rules, and interpret the scriptures however you see fit. this is why you can gather a whole throng of protestants in a room-- baptists, methodists, fundamentalist evangelicals, presbyterians, pentecostals, seventh day adventists, etc. and they will all profess that they believe in the doctrine of the scriptures and the scriptures alone. yet give them a few verses and they will all start to bicker and argue and none of them will agree on much. this even happens within denominations. you have baptists that can't even agree with each other. you have sabbath advocating baptists, reformed baptists, southern or fundamentalist baptists, etc. this is why there is a cesspool of 20,000 protestant denominations all floating around out there. do you really think this is what Christ was describing when he spoke of the Church he was going to build? what was the Church to do before there was any new testament scriptures? what was the Church to do for those decades when the gospel was yet to be put down into writing? the Church came before the scriptures. the scriptures are a property of the Church, not the Church a property of the scriptures. if it wasn't for the Church, you wouldn't have any scriptures to read in the first place!