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We are all learning, I continue to learn, and hope for the day when God will reveal Himself fully in heaven. You can see evidence of my fallibility by having to correct myself, in giving the correct quote, but attributing it to Jesus, rather than St. Paul. I learn every day. I also think that no-one here should just simply accept what I have said, just because I said it. Yes I have spent the past 28 years “searching the Scriptures” and reading Catholic and non-Catholic writers, but I myself am no authority. I too am seeking out the truth.

What I have learned over more than a quarter century is some of the history and development of not simply Catholic history and Dogma, but also the development of Protestant sects, Ancient and Modern Judaism. I don’t claim to know it all, but I do research out from sources that are as impartial as I can find. Yes I do trust that Jesus founded a Church with one truth, which He taught to His Apostles. I believe that knowing the frailty of men, He also knew the need to sustain the Church in more than just a mortal way, depending solely on those men, but by remaining with us and sending the Holy Spirit to guide that Church.

I believe that Jesus in founding the Church gave authority to the Apostles, by laying on hands, and breathing on them. Both signs in Judaism of the passing on of a blessing or authority. That the Apostles who given authority by Jesus, established authorities in the Church of Presbyters and Deacons, who shared in the authority, and responsibilities of guiding the Church by Jesus’ authority.

When it comes to learning the Scriptures, we have the story in the Acts of the Apostles of the Ethiopian Eunuch,

[quote:2elz69vo]26Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Go south to the road the desert road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” 27So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian[a]eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians. This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, 28and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the book of Isaiah the prophet. 29The Spirit told Philip, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.” 30Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. “Do you understand what you are reading?” Philip asked. 31″[i:2elz69vo]How can I,” he said, “unless someone explains it to me?” [/i:2elz69vo]So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.[/quote:2elz69vo]
Here we see St. Philip, who had been given authority, and who learned at the feet of, Jesus himself. Our Lord had explained the Bible (at that time only the Old Testament existed, as the New Testament had not been written) to Philip, who explained the what he had been taught, and was commissioned to teach. He did not simply invent teachings, but he “Traditio” or handed down the teachings of Jesus. I am convinced that the evidence is that the Catholic Church still teaches what Jesus taught, and that later men, most of whom where very sincere decided for themselves that the scriptures taught something different from what was always taught.

Like the Ethiopian, I’m willing to look and see what others teach, I’m willing to compair that teaching to what the Apostles taught. However in this case, we have a doctrine created around 150 years ago, which I have already looked at and compaired to both Scripture and what was taught before the Adventists started teaching it. If some new and compelling information was brought forward, I’d be willing to consider it, but thus far none has been. The assertions are the same ones that I have already considered, compaired and prayed about. I’ve found that the teachings of the Millerites, and other descendents of this doctrine to be a distortion of the truth.