Athan said:

But the doctrine of Truth is of the Holy Spirit, who existed before the

Men

who penned the NT and inspired it's creation.

God existed before the Apostles. This is self evident.

God appointed the apostles. For Christ is God in flesh.

God sent the apostles to preach the Gospel.

God was given to the apostles as authority from God to remit and
retain sins. (Matthew 16, matthew 18 and John 20).

Did the Gospel exist before the Apostles 'created' it?
God did send the apostles to preach the Gospel, but did they create it?
Is
it a function of them, or of God? And did they appoint others by their
own
power and authority, or because the Holy Spirit testified to them?
God did give authority to the Apostles, but did it place them 'above'
their
fellow man as dictators and arbiters of God . . . or did it place them
below
their fellow man as servants?
Was this authority a function of those particular Men, or a function of
God's Holy Spirit living and actve in them?
Is the Holy Spirit now gone, or limited only to church fathers?

God taught the apostles in the 40 days of the resurrection.

God came upon the whole church at its birth at pentecost.

God the Son in the first case, under the authority of the Holy Spirit; the
Holy Spirit in the second case.

The God inspired apostles and God appointed apostles taught and
preached the Gospels and baptised the converts. They married them,
buried them and set in place all Christian doctrines received from
Christ and discussed those issues which caused contentions in the
early Church (acts 15 jewish influence). Since God the Holy Spirit was
with those men they decided this area and this is -later- recorded in
the Book of Acts as a reminder that th4e -apostles- had the Holy
Spirit to teach Christian doctrine.

Your eye seems always upon where Men can be glorified Athan. Did Men set
in
place all Christian doctrines, or were they simply the tools of the Holy
Spirit? Don't get so caught up on the vessel, that the One who fills it
becomes a footnote or afterthought or justification for the greatness of
Man.
God the Holy Spirit was more than just WITH them, He was IN them, working
through them. The good that was done was not indemic to the Men, but to
the
Spirit of God working THROUGH the Men.
Therefore, do we as Christians look to the Men (the physical being easy to
see and regard and point to and put up on pedistals), or to the One who
appointed them and filled them with His Spirit? Now the latter presents
more of a challenge to our senses, our ego, to our very faith. It can be
so
nice having physical supports for a young faith -- spiritual
training-wheels
of sorts. But there comes a time when the training wheels have to come
off.
Paul encouraged those churches he planted to look to him. But what is the
second part of what he said? "Even as I look to Christ". He saw the
example of how the Disciples became the Apostles, by having something
physical to help them along (the Incarnation). But he never failed to
remind people that he was not the important one. Christ is. And perhaps
his being imprisoned and not being able to come back to them was a part of
God's plan to keep those young churches from setting Paul the Saint up on
a
pedistal to be venerated and worshipped as some kind of uber-saint in the
place of Jesus Christ?

Those apostles taught other faithful men and oprdained them to the
offices of Bishop, elder/presbyter and deacon. We see this apostolic
ordination with such at St Timothy, st Titus, St Ignatius and St
Polycarp who were all ordained and appointed by apostles and were
discipled in the Christian doctrines by them

You're still trying to make God's gift a function of a human heirarchy --
from the lips of Man to the ears of Man, with every 'telling' being an
opportunity for pride to go to work on the Truth. Rather than focussing
upon the ordination of Man after Man after Man after Man after Man, focus
upon the One who ordains. Our eyes are not on Man . . . but on God.
Don't seek to follow the Men but rather, seek what they sought. And in
that
I mean God, and not some hierarchy of power and entitlement and control
over
the masses and over the very word of God. These are not things we see
Paul
or any of the other original Apostles seeking. They sought the Kingdom of
God and didn't find it as a function of their power and authority and
control, but in an act of humility and submission to Christ.

Just prior to the apostles falling asleep they wrote their Gospels and
epistles and revelation, these came to be known as the New Testament.
The NT was not codefied as a unit until much later but was certainly
in existence in letter form amongst the various churches.

Again, this was not a function of them so much as it was part of God's
plan
and an exercise of the power of the Holy Spirit in bringing to mind all of
the things Jesus had said to them -- just as Jesus promised would happen.
The power of the New Testament is not a function of Apostles or church
leaders, but a function of the Holy Spirit working through those who were
willing to set themselves aside and function as His vessels. Nor is the
glory of that covenant to be upon the Apostles or the church leaders.
They
were willing to become lesser, so that HE might become greater.

It's too bad that in the gospel you present here day after day, the exact
opposite seems to be the predominant flavour -- Apostles and church
leaders
and your church itself becoming greater, displacing Christ into lesser and
lesser roles.

No Christian was taught that any Christian doctrine needed to be found
solely in the at that time non existant pages of the New testament
during the birth and early decades of the Church. Christian doctrine
of what was and was not of Christ was discovered from a man, the
apostle who preached in whatever region he was in. Miracles
accompanied these men, hearts were converted and the cause of Christ's
Kingdom advanced.

You still cannot see beyond the physical Athan. When do the training
wheels
come off? We seek God. People throughout the ages have found Him through
the power of the Holy Spirit. The original Apostles were merely vessels
of
the Holy Spirit. The Bible was an exercise of the Holy Spirit. It was
neither the vessels nor the words on paper that save or have any power or
authority of themselves. It is all about God! About His invisible Spirit
at work in the world! Don't get so caught up on the tools of this world
that He used, that they become the focus!
Apostles! Hierarches of church leaders! Bleeding Madonnas and images of
Mary on drive-through walls! Splinters of the Cross! Ordination of Men!
The entire focus is the physical that the senses of Man can latch onto.
The
glory is being put in the training wheels. Yet some day the training
wheels
have to come off.
If someone were stranded on an island and cried out to God, would they be
out-of-luck in the total absence of Saints or Ordained Men or Church
Leaders
or Holy Artifacts? Or would the Holy Spirit still be able to minister to
them in the absence of these organizations and hierarchies and constructs
of
Man?

It would be another 15 centuries before schismatics demanded that
Christian doctrine be proved from the pages of the New testament, a
test which is self defeating as it has no support itself from the
pages of the NT, is also spoken directly against by the NT where the
Bible directs the believer to the "Church the puillar and ground of
the truth." and would have been impossible for the majority of the
first century as gospels and epistles were not that available to all,
and certainly were not even written for the first half generation (30
AD - 50 AD).

So even in this you want to maintain that it is Man that is important, the
arbiter of the word of God? You keep wanting to take what is an exercise
of
God's Holy Spirit, and award it to Men who will be lifted up, venerated,
and
eventually worshipped posthumously in Sainthood.
It sounds entirely too much like the Roman system of the Caesars or the
ancient system of the Pharoah were a Man was lifted up, solely because of
his geneology, and placed upon a pedistal as a Human link to the Divine --
above all others and who's very word became God's word. And when they did
die, exaborate monuments were built to them to try to distract from the
fact
that they were simply human and yes, they died!
The only difference is that now there are a whole passel of Men occupying
this place, more in keeping with the pantheon of ancient Greek gods.

Such processes are the trap when the focus is shifted off of God, and onto
Man. The gospel you present would appear to be a Humanistic one, for its
focus is on Humans. Many of us have heard the term "Secular Humanist".
Perhaps this is "Religious Humanist"?

When the focus is upon Humans, they become the important ones and
elaborate
constructs are built to nurture and maintain their importance. When God
is
the important One, it is not the acts or power or authority of tools and
vessels that is the focus; but the Lord who makes all of these good things
happen.

Yours in Christ,

Griz