Indiana Brunner

Orthobros on judgement day when God asks “Remember when I commanded you not to bow down to man made images?”

“As he said these things, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, ‘Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts at which you nursed!’ But he said, ‘Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!’” (Luke 11:27-28) Jesus consistently elevated His spiritual family above flesh and blood. The Pharisees were the ones who found confidence in the flesh. True blessedness is not ultimately found in any biological relationship to Christ, but through faith in Him. God's true family is united not by flesh and blood, but through faith.

How Orthobros look at you when they say icon veneration is apostolic.

Eastern Orthodoxy is ironically a departure from Christian orthodoxy.

I’d love to take them seriously, but they don’t give me ANY substance to take seriously. Just baseless claims and accusations.

The Gospel of John is BASED and TRUE

The more they talk the more I realize they don’t really understand the gospel. It is not our love for Christ that saves us, but Christ’s love for us. “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” (1 John 4:10) “We love because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:19) Our love is not the cause of our salvation, but the consequence of it. We do not love in order to obtain God’s favor, but because he has already shown us favor in Christ. Love is not exercised for the sake of self, but for the sake of Christ, his people, and the advancement of his gospel. If you think your love is what justifies you, then you don’t know what love is. “For the love of Christ controls us… that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.” (2 Corinthians 5:14–15) Our love does not save us. Rather, it serves as a testimony to the love of Christ, through which others may hear the gospel and be saved. “I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.” (1 Corinthians 9:23) We do not love to be saved. We love because we have been saved. And we love so that others might come to know the very love by which we ourselves were saved. Our love is not the means by which we earn salvation, but an instrument through which God makes his salvation known to others.

As Protestants, we should not downplay the importance of Peter. Peter represents what it means to be a Christian: one to whom the truth has been revealed, not by flesh and blood, but by the Father in heaven (Matthew 16:17), and who cannot help but speak of what he has seen and heard (Acts 4:20). Yet despite this truth being revealed to him, Peter ran, just like Jonah. He denied Christ three times, but Christ will lose none of His sheep (John 6:39). Peter was restored and continued in the gospel. Yet he retreated again in fear, this time because of the circumcision party, and was corrected by his brother Paul (Galatians 2:11–14). This is what it means to be a Christian: imperfect, but redeemed. Inconsistent, yet trusting in One who is perfectly consistent. All Christians follow in Peter’s footsteps in this respect. He represents what it means to be a Christian. A Christian needs Christ. A Christian needs his brothers and sisters. Without Christ and His Church, we are lost to the winds and waves of this world. To give Peter primacy is to obscure the very thing his life so beautifully represents: our common dependence upon Christ and one another.

Words cannot express how stupid you have to be to place your hope in dust when Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life. Return to dust if you’d like. My refuge is Christ alone.

The answer is that it doesn’t.

Where does Scripture ever teach that a line of ordination is what determines fidelity to the true gospel?

I’ve never seen a more insecure group of adult men than those in the online Orthobro community.

Blatantly man-made (non-apostolic) traditions: 1. The Immaculate Conception (Mary’s preservation from original sin) 2. The perpetual sinlessness of Mary 3. The bodily Assumption of Mary 4. The perpetual virginity of Mary 5. Mary as Queen of Heaven 6. The invocation of Mary as an intercessor 7. The attribution of titles such as “Mediatrix of All Graces” to Mary 8. The religious veneration of icons and statues 9. The practice of bowing before and kissing sacred images 10. The invocation of departed saints 11. The veneration of relics 12. The distinction between latria, dulia, and hyperdulia as a justification for religious veneration 13. Purgatory 14. The treasury of merit (as though Christ’s finished work were insufficient) 15. The granting of indulgences 16. The distinction between temporal and eternal punishment as the basis for indulgences 17. The doctrine of supererogatory works 18. The distinction between mortal and venial sins 19. The sacrament of penance as a means of obtaining post-baptismal forgiveness 20. Sacramental confession to a priest as an ordinary requirement for absolution 21. The papacy as a divinely instituted office 22. Papal supremacy over the universal Church 23. Papal infallibility 24. The claim that the Bishop of Rome is the successor of Peter in a unique office of universal jurisdiction 25. The claim that submission to the Roman Pontiff is necessary for salvation 26. The doctrine of an infallible ecclesiastical Magisterium 27. The elevation of unwritten Sacred Tradition alongside Sacred Scripture as an infallible rule of faith 28. The claim that one particular episcopal communion exclusively constitutes the Church of Christ 29. Mandatory priestly celibacy in the Latin Church 30. The requirement of episcopal succession as a necessary condition for valid ordination 31. Transubstantiation 32. The Eucharist as a propitiatory sacrifice offered by a unique priestly class 33. The reservation and adoration of the consecrated Eucharist 34. Baptismal regeneration as an ordinarily necessary means of justification 35. The automatic remission of original sin through infant baptism 36. Seven Sacraments Did I miss anything?

Paul hypothetically places even himself and the other apostles under the authority of the gospel once for all delivered to the saints (Gal. 1:8; Jude 3). Fidelity to that gospel, RATHER than a physical line of successors, is the mark of true apostolicity. The sooner you understand this, the sooner you’ll realize that Reformed Baptist Christianity is true apostolic Christianity.

Presumption says “I’m good enough” Assurance says “Jesus is enough.”

Private judgment is apparently infallible only when it leads to Rome.