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The letter was "generated in Jerusalem" and exported from there back to the origin (Antioch) of the question. "Certain people came down from Judea TO ANTIOCH" Acts 15, 1 - and proceeded to make some teachings that contradicted Paul and Barnabas' understanding. This dispute was brought to Jerusalem, a Council was held, a decision was reached with the unity of the Holy Spirit and the determination was put into a letter and promulgated back to Antioch, Syria & Cilicia. So, it was Judaizers, who came from Judea without any authority to teach that attempted to "get a doctrine" into the Church at Antioch. It's likely that this "unauthorized teaching" originated from Pharisee Christians from Judea. In fact the first attack on the Christian Church came from Judaizers, the 2nd attack came from the Gnostics.

In honor of World Elephant Day, August 12, and if you have three minutes to watch, you may enjoy the following video:

Five years after Shira and Shmuel Klein were married, they received their final wedding gift – a challah maker. In an attempt to cover procrastination with humor, the friend who sent it included a note: "Sorry for the delay but I wanted to make sure the marriage would last." Shira wasn't amused, but she thought the present deserved a thank-you note anyway, which she dutifully sent five years later. Her note read: "Sorry for the delay but I wanted to be sure the challah maker would last."

Little Yitzi Goren was walking home from school in Jerusalem when he came across a police officer who had a dog in the back of his van – a K-9 unit. "Is that a dog back there?" Yitzi asked the police officer. "It sure is," the police officer replied. Puzzled, Yitzi looked at the officer and then towards the back of the van. Finally Yitzi said, "What did he do?"

Michael Feldman called one of his employees into the office. "David," he said, "you've been with the company for a year. You started off in the mail room, one week later you were promoted to a sales position, and one month after that you were promoted to district manager of the sales department. Just four short months later, you were promoted to vice-chairman. Now it's time for me to retire, and I want you to take over the company. What do you say to that?" "Thanks," said the employee. "Thanks?" Feldman the boss replied. "Is that all you can say?" "Sorry ... Thanks, Dad?"

The RCC condoning same sex marriage, reversing an Official Church Teaching, things like that would cause me to question my affiliation. Several years ago I saw a Christian Church that had been buried under sand and dirt since around 330 A.D. It looked JUST like an Orthodox Church. I've known some very saintly Orthodox Christians. If something happened that caused me to leave the Catholic Church I would become Eastern Orthodox in a microsecond.

# !: Here is the answer to what I did: * FIrst I visited the Social worker and got her perspective on the situation. * Next I visited the Baptist mother and established a realationship with her. * Next I visited the Catholic couple to understand where they were comming from. They were devestated by the situation that they were in. They had a Catholic priest standing by to baptize the child once they had the child. After istening to them, I proposed a solution in which I would not baptize the child and I asked if they would agree to my proposal. They immediately accepted it. * I next visited the biological mother again. I reminded her that she was violating a major belief that she had been taught as to baptism and I asked her If that was really what she wanted to do. Then we talked abut my proposed resoluton of the problem. She agreed to my proposal. * Shortly the Baptist mother, the RC couple, the Social Worker and I entered the hospital chapel. There I laid hands on the biological mother and thanked God for her desire to follow God and I asked God to bless her in her future life. Then I laid hands on the Roman CAtholic couple. I thanked God for their willingness to accept the responsibility of raising this child and I asked that the Holy Spirit would guide them in this journey of raising this chilld. At the end of this, it was time for the biological mother to hand the chold over to the adoptive mother, as had been agreed. * At that time the biological mother stated that she wanted to talk directly to the adoptive mother alone and she wanted all of the rest of us to leave. So we did. * After several minutes of waiting, the adoptive mother walked out of the chapel holding the child in her arms, with the biological mother behind her. Mission accomplished!

When I see what I perceive to be contradictions in scripture, I automatically assume I am misunderstanding things; because in my mind, scripture is never wrong. There are a lot of things in scripture that contradict Ellen White and a lot of things in Ellen White that contradict scripture. When I see a contradiction, I'll take scripture over her every day.

Probably say a blessing over the person. As you’ve described it I doubt the Priest would perform a full anointing of the sick (which is a sacrament) if the person’s stated faith was other than Catholic, Orthodox, certain Lutheran churches, & other aligned liturgical Churches. This persons relatives didn’t know his current religious affiliation?

There is much that is not known related to the issue of transgender. Regardless, I will say that being transgender is not a happy situation for anyone who is transgender. In my personal opinion, I do not even believe that we have a good understanding as to what a transgender person is. I am reminded of the debate that exists in the U.S. today related to homosexuality. Some define homosexuality on the basis of conduct, while others define it on the basis of gender preference. There is a world of difference between these two. Under the definition related to conduct, one may change from homosexual to heterosexual. Under the definition of gender preference, one may change their conduct, but their gender preference is unlikely to be changed. I will suggest that a similar situation may exist related to a transgender person. I will suggest that there are problematic issues related to school children claiming to be transgender, which is often simply a fad. One of the issues is probably that of genetics. In the area of homosexuality, we have limited information available as to a genetic influence. We are still in the learning stage on this issue. I will suggest that in the area of transgender, we understand even less as to the genetic influence. We have probably been taught that there are genetically two types of humans. [NOTE: We do know that this is NOT true for some other types of animal life.] We believe that persons born with a XX genetic configuration are female and persons born with a XY configuration are male. As it pertains to humans, all are either XX or XY. In actual fact this is not true. We now know some people have some organs that are genetically XX and other organs that are genetically XY. [NOTE: I am not referring to the external genitals.] To illustrate with an example: In some people it would be possible for a persons skin to be of one type, while that person's liver to be of another type. I do not think, that we know how this may effect a person being transgender. In short, I believe that our knowledge as to what it means to be a transgender and therefore we should be cautious as to what we say about such people.