AV Bible Believers Fellowship

This is an interesting link,hope it works.
http://www.blessedquietness.com/journal/...pourri.htm

(11-27-2010 02:32 PM)Here Am I Wrote: [ -> ]Good article, sister.

Watch the source, though. The person who runs that site has some awful stuff available along with the good.

Amen! I've been reading that site for ten years. It has some excellent information ... along with the anti-Ruckman stuff, and everything from dogmatic "house church only" articles to an article rationalizing masturbation for young men.

Approach with caution.

Yes for sure there is all that there but I ignore that when I find the good articles.I thought maybe this was a well thought out article with a presentation of scripture that is helpful.

There was no Pope in Rome until the time of Constantine. At least the tradition of the pope's lineage follows more closely to Constantine than to any apostle or Roman bishop. Therefore, Simon the Sorcerer wouldn't have been a pope.

(11-27-2010 10:30 PM)ASongOfDegrees Wrote: [ -> ]There was no Pope in Rome until the time of Constantine. At least the tradition of the pope's lineage follows more closely to Constantine than to any apostle or Roman bishop. Therefore, Simon the Sorcerer wouldn't have been a pope.

Absolutely right. Constantine was more than just Emperor; he was, by definition, the first Pope. To suggest anyone earlier is sheer, damnable Roman Catholic propaganda.

Constantine was in Constantinople and the vying back and forth was first the most probably informal pope as Eusebius (student of Origin), although he got out-moved politically. It was later when they moved to Rome and at one time had da papa's palaces in France (still exist), Rome and Contantinople. Three popes at one time with many having wifes and mistresses and also it appears that three was one woman pope.

Constantine birthed the catholics no doubt but they were never Christian at any time. If you go back far enough before them there were some heretics as John mentions that came out from among us and went on to start their own doctrine ultimately birthing the catholics through Constantine or so I think.

The Edict of Milan (313 A.D.), in which Constantine "legalized" Christianity and proclaimed "religious tolerance," was the worst thing that ever happened in Christian history. The Christian faith, the real, deep, personal business with Jesus Himself, does not flourish under "tolerance" and ease; it flourishes under persecution. I hate to say that, but it's a fact of human nature: a "faith" which costs nothing is usually worth nothing. I'm not talking about "repentance" or "giving it all to God;" I'm talking about persecution, such as Christians saw under Communism, and continue to see in Islamic countries and China.

Persecution is what separates the sheep from the goats.

Anyway, when Constantine had his demonic vision of a flaming cross, and issued his Edict, the very worst elements in Christendom, the nascent Roman Catholic Church, acclaimed him as their "Pontifex Maxiumus." He appears on no Catholic list of Popes, but he was the de facto Pope, just as Peyton Randolph, the first President of the First Continental Congress, was the de facto first American President - - - not George Washington, who was merely the first to be elected according to the Constitution.