Posted on 05/31/2010 6:33:12 AM PDT by Cronos
1. Where does the Bible claim sola scriptura?
2. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 says "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteous- ness; That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works." --> it doesn't say that Scriptura is sufficient, just that it is profitable i.e. helpful. the entire verse from 14 to 17 says "But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them; and that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God (Greek: theopneustos = "God-breathed"), and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works"
3. Where else do we have the term "sola scriptura" in the Bible?
4. Matthew 15 - Jesus condemns corrupt tradition, not all tradition. At no point is the basic notion of traidition condemned
5. 2 Thessalonians 2:15 "So then, brehtern, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter"
6. 1 Timothy 3:14-15
14Although I hope to come to you soon, I am writing you these instructions so that, 15if I am delayed, you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God's household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.note that the Pillar and Foundation of the Truth is The Church of the Living God
>>”...”three-legged stool”: Bible, Church, and Tradition are all necessary to arrive at truth. If you knock out any leg of a three-legged stool, it collapses.”
>
>It’s going to tip over anyway, because y’all left out reality and logic.
Good observation.
Christianity is really the only religion which takes God up on the offer to “Come, let us reason together[...]” [Isaiah 1:18 — Originally made to the Jews, but now available to all mankind.]
{Christianity’s willingness to reason/debate comes from both Judaism’s [classic] rabbinical reasoning AND the ‘Western’ philosophical/logical reasoning; current Judaism is closed-off/blinded to Jesus-as-Savior and “christian-nominalism” gives rise to the stupidity of “Well, my mom’s Catholic and my dad’s Protestant, so I’m half-Catholic/half-Protestant.” Islam is... well, Islam. Those that seek God, however, will find Him [in & through Jesus].}
Look angels are important in God’s plans, and they do keep charge over us...butLook at Romans 8:25- and then you get back to me and see what it says...no on second thought I’ll post it for you...”“ ; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words, and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God” (vv. 26-27).
The real work in the heart of the believers is done thru the Spirit...where even angels fear to tread!
You also use Revelation 8:3 out of context since this chapter is the conclusion of the opening of the 7 seals and the commencement of dreadful judgments upon a disobedient Earth. The angel in question in some commentaries is Christ himself, other commentaries have a master angel performing the role of a priest offering the prayers as sweet incense offering in preparation for the seven trumpets,seven bowls and 7 vials angels. The prayers are collected and then the censor is filled with the fire from the altar of God...(and what do you think that fire is but the purging action of God’s Spirit!!!) If you are going to quote scripture you need to quote its context. Chapter 8 is about the impending judgment of the Earth, not about the intercessing work of the Spirit of God in the hearts of believers!
You don’t think there aren’t a myriad of so called Catholic...traditions and pursuasions of practise and thought which could be called denominations in terms of how protestants use the term? One might call the tridentines one denomenation and the Jesuits another denomination. Then there are the Orthodox churches...which seem to be to the Catholics like the Samaritans were to the Jews.
Sola Scriptura took one minute to blow the scales off folks eyes so they could see the decadence that the western Catholocism had fallen into by the mid 1400’s!
One is either a Christian or lost...catholic or protestant pursuasions have nothing to do with the Lamb’s book of life! Having one’s name written there will be what truly matters...!
“They’re using the old strawman argument, they must be desperate.”
Some people are too proud to be desperate.
“Every single Catholic belief is Biblical, which is proof that even Catholics believe in Sola Scriptura.
One is either a Catholic
Or a follower of Jesus Christ and HIS WORD for Jesus is THE LIVING WORD. NO ONE can trump that.
Now now, let them keep trying. It’s entertaining.
Sola Scriptura anyone?
Pick one of these:
(1)Man shall not live by bread ALONE, but by every Word of God.
(2)Man shall not live by bread ALONE, but by the traditions of man.
(3)Man shall not live by bread ALONE, but by what my priest and church tell me is so.
Sola sciptura took like 1 minute to create a chaff of false churches of one, it made every single Protestant an infallible pope and council of one. The only thing that Protestants agree on is that they don't want to be Catholics. What is the point of arguing with 500 million different private opinions?
James 1:26 & 27 -- If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain. 27 Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.
James 3:2 -- For in many things we offend all. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body.
James 3:3-10 -- Behold, we put bits in the horses' mouths, that they may obey us; and we turn about their whole body. 4 Behold also the ships, which though they be so great, and are driven of fierce winds, yet are they turned about with a very small helm, whithersoever the governor listeth. 5 Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth! 6 And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell. 7 For every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind: 8 But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. 9 Therewith bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God. 10 Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be.
James 3:13-18 -- 13 Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom. 14 But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth. 15 This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. 16 For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work. 17 But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. 18 And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace.
James 2:1-12 -- My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons. 2 For if there come unto your assembly a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment; 3 And ye have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him, Sit thou here in a good place; and say to the poor, Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool: 4 Are ye not then partial in yourselves, and are become judges of evil thoughts? 5 Hearken, my beloved brethren, Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him? 6 But ye have despised the poor. Do not rich men oppress you, and draw you before the judgment seats? 7 Do not they blaspheme that worthy name by the which ye are called?
8 If ye fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well: 9 But if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors. 10 For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. 11 For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law. 12 So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty.
Has EVERY single Pope, without exception, been able to keep his tongue in check? Has ANY Pope ever neglected the poor & downtrodden? Has ANY Pope showed partiality to persons?
My High Priest & King, Jesus, can and has done all of this.
“There are as many sects now and beliefs as there are heads. This fellow has nothing to do with baptism. Another one denies the sacraments. A third believes there is another world between this one and the last day. Some teach that Christ is not God. Some say this, some say that. There is no rustic so rude that if he dreams or fancies anything believes it must be the whisper of the Holy Spirit and that he himself must be a prophet.”(Martin Luther(Martin Luther)
And where does it say that there are no longer prophets, those with the gift of prophecy? Just because this is "the church age" means that the spiritual gifts are gone wholly and completely?
I have a friend who likes a saying: "Anyone who tells you what to think is trying to control you, anyone who teaches you how to think is trying to set you free."
My point, for those of you who cannot see it, like the 12 after Jesus' parable of the sower is this:
Jesus, in His ministry, did not come down and lay "teh smackdown" on sinners, as He had every right to do. To the woman at the well [John 4:1-42], who was promiscuous {Jesus said to her, “Right you are when you said, ‘I have no husband,’ for you have had five husbands and the man you have now is not your husband. This you said truthfully!”} but still believed Him, He said: "Go and sin no more." Indeed, this is a common sub-theme in many of the stories (Luke 7:36-50 Simon & the Sinner-woman; John 7:53-8:11 The Woman Taken In Adultery) and as such it is often seen as the main theme of these stories; however, often missed is that Jesus' "Go and sin no more" is both an acceptance of where they are RIGHT NOW [imperfect] and an encouragement toward perfection.
Are any here greater than Jesus, who will dare to say "your imperfection is such an area is utterly unacceptable" despite whatever the condition of their heart may be?
You are acting a fool if you think thusly! Do you not remember the parable of the Wicked Servent, who after being forgiven an insurmountable mountain of debt, went and seized a fellow-servant by the neck demanding the pocket-change he was owed?
One is either a Catholic, or anything that they want to be (Hilaire Belloc)
Good; I want to be a Follower of Jesus. The Catholic church can follow Jesus or go and do its own thing, we will all be held to account for what paths we choose.
Look up any anti-Mormon thread on FR and see the never ending scriptural disagreements between the bible only types. Always debating never coming to a conclusion. And with every generation and person it STARTS all over again.
Thanks for your opinion. Now on to the other 499,999,999 who think they "cracked the code".
Hilaire Belloc said "One is either a Catholic or anything that they want to be". A Protestants religion is doing what they want to do and maybe finding some conveniently interpreted scripture, as they want to see it, to justify themself. In other words they are what they want to be, their religion is a mirror image of themselves.
Let's get to where the rubber meets the road, LIVING the faith (by their deeds you shall know them):
Do you believe that, whether people partake in impure touching, fornicate before marriage, shack up, marry civil only, use contraceptives, divorce from a marriage before God, abort children conceived in a rape, watch immoral programs and movies like Desperate Housewives, watch pornography, go to strip clubs, go to the beach to look at the naked girls... IT”S ALL OK FOR THEM, as long as they “have a relationship with Christ”, they are all saved?
1st: Demonstrably false. Disunity comes from ABANDONING sola scriptura and instituting a plethora of traditions and doctrinal decrees which produces disunity. The FIRST disunion came in the 11th century when the eastern church BROKE from Rome. Today that is known as the Orthodox half. You are hardly unified.
2nd: There are today 41-1302 Orthodox denominations inside the Orthodox church and 30-410 Roman Catholic denominations inside the Roman Catholic church. Major sub-sets are as follows:
ORTHODOX Total
Albanian / Greek-speaking (Orthodox)
Arabic or Arabic / Greek-speaking Orthodox
Armenian Orthodox (Gregorian)
Bulgarian Orthodox
Byelorussian / Belorussian (While Russian / White Ruthenian)
Coptic Orthodox
Czech / Slavonic-speaking Orthodox
Estonian Orthodox
Ethiopic, Ethiopian Orthodox, GoOez-speaking
Finnish / Slavonic-Speaking Orthodox
Georgian Orthodox
Greek Orthodox
Hungarian / Slavonic-speaking Orthodox
Latvian Orthodox
Macedonian Orthodox
Moldavian Orthodox
Assyrian or Nestoran (East Syrian, Messihaye (Christians)
Polish/Slavonic-speaking Orthodox
Romanian Orthodox
Russian Orthodox
Serbian Orthodox
Slovak Orthodox
Syro-Malabarese (Eastern-Syrian), Syriac/Malayalam-speaking
Syrian, Syriac-speaking Orthodox or Syro-Antiochian Ukrainian Orthodox
ROMAN CATHOLIC
Armenian (Eastern-rite Catholic)
Bulgarian (Byzantine rite)
Byzantine-rite (jurisdiction for more than one ethnic group)
Chaldean (Eastern Syrian rile)
Coptic (Alexandrian rite)
Ethmpic, Alexandrian rite)
Greek (Byzantine rite)
Hungarian (Byzantine rite)
Italo-Albanian (Byzantine rite)
Jurisdiction for both Latin-rite and Eastern-rite Catholics
Latin-roe Catholic
Malankara (Syro-Antiochian Eastern Syrian), Syro-Malankarese
MaronitOriental (Jurisdiction for several Eastern rites)
Ian Byzantine rite
Russian (Byzantine rite)
Ruthenian (Byzantine rite)
Slovak (Byzantine rite)
Syro-Malabarese (Eastern Syrian)
Syrian, Syriac-speaking (Syro-Antiochian West Syrian)
Ukrainian Byzantine rite
(Source for the above: David A. Barrett, World Christian Encyclopedia, 2001, p 16-18).
Seems you can be Catholic and still be anything you want to be. Heh.
Wow! You wrote it, not I. According to you, 11 centuries of unity without using sola scrpitura. When like I said, Protestantism with sola scriptura took like 1 minute to divide.
Re:There are today 41-1302 Orthodox denominations inside the Orthodox church
They're your numbers, whatever. The so-called Orthodox are not a united body, nor a true church, they are though much more united in doctrine than any Protestant sect. The Orthodox are all heretics and schismatics, same as each Protestant.
Re: and 30-410 Roman Catholic denominations inside the Roman Catholic church. Major sub-sets are as follows
If they are Catholic, they are united in doctrine. 95%+ of all Catholics are Roman Rite Catholics, the rite is the ritual of the mass. The other 5% are divided up among Eastern Rites. They are all Catholic and adhere to the exact same infallible truths. 30 - 410 rites? Absurd!
“11 centuries of unity without using sola scrpitura”
I really doubt that is so..what with all the popes and anti popes and supressions of moves of the spirit when the Holy Spirit would move on a church here or there...
Yet, I do agree that in Western Europe during the dark times between 476 to the mid 1400’s or so God used the western church to provide structure, hope and spiritual light to folks that desperately needed Christ. They provided the spiritual impetus to keep Islam at bay. ie the battle of Tours in 732 AD and Charlemagne was the first of the great enlightened kings who called Christ his saviour...though he used savage means to tame savage lands!
Missionaries were sent out to bring Christ to vikings and other folks bringing Christ’s civilizing consciousness to tame them. Many were martyred in Christ’s name.
I have not forgotten what God has done thru the western Catholic church in history, yet by the 1400’s she had forgotten her mission and had fallen into apostacy. Thus, God made a move to enable the common man to know his scripture and know him not just thru taught tradition and thru the fear of the local inquisition but thru the written word of God and by the knowledge of a personal relationship with him.
What do you think God meant when he said of the latter days...” I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh so that old men will dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions, and that your daughters shall prophesy”? How did you ever think that the Catholics could contain all that(like an old wine sack trying to hold fermenting new wine)?(By the way, sort of sounds like each man becomes, not their own pope, but rather fellow intercessors to bring the light of Christ to a dark world)
>Thanks for your opinion. Now on to the other 499,999,999 who think they “cracked the code”.
Excuse me, but did I ever claim to “have cracked the code” (i.e. have perfect understanding)? You are manifestly wrong in saying that EVERYTHING I posted is opinion; the biblical references I gave do exist and you are free to look them up. (If my conclusions are wrong, then I welcome you to challenge the premises I used or even the logic.)
The idea that “the church fathers” were all correct is as absurd as saying that the Pharisees were all correct for the same reason that our legal system is in such bad shape: ‘precedence.’ {The idea that some judge’s ruling is above the law (or even on par with it) is to degrade the actuality & reality of the law.}
Does James 2:4 apply to you, specifficly:
Are ye not then partial in yourselves, and are become judges of evil thoughts?
Specifically, by dismissing what I am saying out-of-hand, because “it is opinion,” and not backing yourself up with either reasoning or scripture (All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness — 2 Timothy 3:16)?
At this point, yes I *AM* calling you out. Whether or not scripture ALONE is good and proper/acceptable is irrelevant: you are denying, by your actions & attitude, that it is good/useful for teaching or rebuking.
If you don't know the stark differences between the traditions of the GO and RC, I guess that tells me all I need to know.
Nope, that's according to YOU. Its my belief the first 11 centuries did use sola scriptura, later abandoned by the church has it became increasingly pagan. Just a few of my proof texts:
"We have learned from none others the plan of our salvation, than from those through whom the Gospel has come down to us, which they did at one time proclaim in public, and, at a later period, by the will of God, handed down to us in the Scriptures, to be the ground and pillar of our faith. (Irenaeus, Against Heresies, book 3, 1, 1; A.D. 180)
"There is, brethren, one God, the knowledge of whom we gain from the Holy Scriptures, and from no other source. For just as a man, if he wishes to be skilled in the wisdom of this world, will find himself unable to get at it in any other way than by mastering the dogmas of philosophers, so all of us who wish to practice piety will be unable to learn its practice from any other quarter than the oracles of God. Whatever things, then, the Holy Scripture declare, at these let us look; and whatsoever things they teach, these let us learn; and as the Father wills our belief to be, let us believe; and as He wills the Son to be glorified, let us glorify Him; and as He wills the Holy Spirit to be bestowed, let us receive Him. Not according to our own will, nor according to our own mind, nor yet as using violently those things which are given by God, but even as He has chosen to teach them by the Holy Scriptures, so let us discern them." (Hippolytus, Against Noetus, ch 9, A.D. 200)
"Such is their error, such their pestilent teaching; to support it they borrow the words of Scripture, perverting its meaning and using the ignorance of men as their opportunity of gaining credence for their lies. Yet it is certainly by these same words of God that we must come to understand the things of God." (Hilary of Poitiers, On the Trinity, Book IV, 14; A.D. 350)
The Orthodox are all heretics and schismatics, same as each Protestant.
Again so says you. I don't take your word for anything, I'll stick with Scripture thanks. But it is interesting you bring up heresies. Fascinating study isn't it?
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