It depends on who you're asking. I think we both agree that it isn't working in Rome. For me, Apostolicity is marked by adherence to what the Apostles wrote.
Amen, and yes, it can be difficult, but I believe that the Scriptures are able to accomplish what they were set out to accomplish, because they say that they can.
A cursory study or knowledge of hermeneutics shows that without a guide for what is written, there is no way you could know if you were doing it right (understanding it). Even the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint) requires knowledge of the thought process or worldview of semitic peoples, being more reliable than the Masoretic Text. Just in that statement one can see how complex this whole issue is.
I always loved this one.
Wouldn't the Masoretic Text be more useful for tapping into the Semitic worldview?
As someone else has mentioned, that the Eucharist had not yet been established does not preclude Christ from alluding to it. He alluded to many, many things that would yet come to pass, this would not be an exception. Following that line of reasoning you would then, for example, have to make the argument that Christ never referred to the Resurrection before he had been crucified.
Sure, but there's nothing in John 6 that even mentions the Eucharist.
I think John 6:53 is more connected to John 6:35 than Mark 14:22-24.
We were discussing how you would interpet Christ's reference to His body and blood, which is mentioned in John 6.
There's not even the beginnings of a rationale in that statement. If you have the will I'd be interested to hear why Mark 14:22-24 is not very connected to John 6:53? How do you intepret Mark 14:22-24? Otherwise have a good Lord's Day yourself.
Saying Christ knows the future is a different statement than saying John 6 is about the Eucharist. There's nothing in John 6 that tells us it is.
I don't deny that Christ institutes the Eucharist in Mark 14, He clearly does. If you come to John 6, and define it's terms by Mark 14, rather than what John 6 says about itself, then you will come to a different conclusion than if you allow John 6 to stand within it's own context.
Iacobus gave you a good link to a good thread that gets into this in depth, but to me it is very obvious from just a cursory reading of the New Testament. At Christ's time, some Jews believed in him and therefore came to be called Christians, but that's semantics. By accepting Christ they were just practicing the same true faith as the Old Testament prophets. With Christ's coming the true faith was opened to non Jews too, so you get St. Paul's teaching about how it doesn't matter if you're a Jew or Greek (non-Jew) anymore.
A lot of online Orthodox accounts would benefit from worrying less about engagement and more about how they're presenting/representing the faith. I've practically muted more people claiming to be Orthodox than I have secular.
