Posted on 07/23/2016 8:40:34 PM PDT by boatbums
“Has the Roman Catholic Church infallibly defined a single word of Jesus or an apostle, that is not found in Scripture?” Dr. James White to Mitch Pacwa
“I cannot think of any.” Mitch Pacwa
This shows that everything the church needed for ministry was written down in the Scriptures. That is the clear implication of the verses below; and combined with the early church’s understanding of the rule of faith / apostolic tradition, when it is specifically spelled out, it indicates that everything needed was written down in the NT.
Jude 3 – the faith was once for all delivered to the saints
John 17:7 – Jesus praying to the Father – “the words that You gave Me, I have given to them”
John 14:26 – “when the Holy Spirit comes, He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance everything I have told you”
John 16:12-13 – “I have many more things to tell you . . . when the Spirit comes He will lead you into all the truth.”
2 Timothy 3:16-17 – All Scripture is God-breathed . . . in order that the man of God may be fully equipped for every good work. Verse 15 is about the OT, but then verse 16 expands it to include all Scripture, and so this includes by principle, both all OT and NT books, even those not written yet in 67 AD, when 2 Timothy was written. The fact that 1 Timothy 5:18 has both an OT quote and a NT quote shows that Paul understood this.
1 Timothy 5:18 – both quotes from the OT and NT (Luke 10:7; Matthew 10:10; 1 Corinthians 9:14)) are called Scripture. Shows Paul understood those NT books written by that time as Scripture.
2 Peter 3:16 – Peter considers all of Paul’s writings as “Scripture”
1 Corinthians 4:6 – “do not go beyond what is written”. This is Sola Scriptura in principle, even though all the NT Scriptures were not written yet. 1 Corinthians being written around 55 AD.
2 Peter 1:3-4 – God has given us everything we need for life and godliness
(the promises of His word and the Holy Spirit) And Athanasius seems to be alluding to this by his statement, after listing the 27 NT books, “In these alone (Mono- Greek, translated into Sola – Latin – alone, “Scripture alone”) is the teaching of godliness”. That is Sola Scriptura in principle. (Athanasius, Festal Letter 39, 367 AD)
Roman Catholic apologists like to emphasize the tradition of the early church, and claim that other unwritten oral apostolic traditions that Paul mentions in 2 Thessalonians 2:15, are brought out later in church history. The problem is, the main early church fathers, when they explicate what “the tradition of the apostles”, or “the faith” or “the preaching” or “the rule of faith” is, the content is all Biblical content. It is all doctrinal points that are in Scripture, and based on and outlined from the baptismal formula of Matthew 28:19, organized around The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and these are very similar in content to the early creeds such as the Apostles Creed, and the Nicean-Constantinopolitan Creed.
Nowhere do these early fathers mention anything that Rome has deemed as dogmatic centuries later in these passages. There is nothing about a Pope, or Marian dogmas or piety (except for the virgin birth, which Protestants accept), nothing about indulgences, purgatory, or Transubstantiation, or priests, etc. Nothing.
Since these are all in Scripture, this points to the truth that the early church held to Sola Scriptura, and the fact that no extra Biblical traditions or doctrines are included in these explications of “the tradition” or “the rule of faith” or “the preaching”, it shows that all that was necessary for the church to function and minister in the power of the Holy Spirit was written down in the Scriptures.
This is true apostolic succession – faithfully passing down sound doctrine to the next generation.
It’s a debate that isn’t going to go away any time soon. The nature of valid ongoing revelation is under debate.
I would believe any valid answer is going to be Jesus centered rather than denomination-centered or congregation-centered. Who gets glorified, God or man?
The date for a unified church and the unconfused literal authority associated directly with such a thing, until something happens to reverse it, has passed. Luther and other reformers, from that standpoint, are only late to a sad party that already began with the Roman and Orthodox churches. We are thrown on Christ and the bible by necessity, to weather this dark season of the universal church until Christ shall personally call it back together.
The ultimate test of a part of the church as a vehicle through which Christ leads, would be the visible results. Does this look unmistakably like Christ. Does this look like the work of a God “with which all things are possible”? The presence of complete mortal perfection isn’t needed to see the unique approaches to the holy that the Lord works in this mortal world.
I think there is room for all to get off their own private high horses here.
Kinda blows the rcc outta the water doesn’t it.
Non-Catholic site, folks. Move on.
I’ve pointed out that the bible is in fact the advice of the ancients. The “trick” for us is to get out of God’s way when His Spirit seeks to make plain the advice that He would have us apply at a particular time. I’m not immune to bragging about getting this piece of oh so rarely grasped theology, or that piece, at least until some neighbor happens to mention it seemingly randomly in passing...
LOL
catholicism doesn’t seem to be able to stand up to the light of truth. sure sign of a cult.
This could be taken as “giving a reason for the hope that dwells within us.”
The church would have still been a split thing if the reformers had never gotten into the picture, both pieces of the split swearing against the other that only THEY were the keeper of total accuracy. When was the last time you ever heard either the Romans or the Orthodox complaining that if only the Protestants got on board, they could then unite with one another?
I sometimes get the sense that the Protestant revolution was, quite largely, the reductio ad absurdam that the Lord applied in rebuke to the state the church got into. There is a lot of reflexively accepted “cruft” all over the church... not just the oldest line parts of it. The church needs salvation. Well guess what, the church has salvation... not in the body of its own doctrines but in Christ.
This is also what made the work of C. S. Lewis so rare. He almost alone of men on earth attempted to embrace around all the gaps, and attempted to show that with Christ this indeed was possible in principle.
Posting a link to a debate between a Reformed Baptist apologist and a Catholic priest is “Catholic bashing” in your mind?
What particular "churches" are still receiving "ongoing revelation" or even debating about it?
Apparently the Roman one is among them.
Name one.
Reformed Baptist (or Southern [Redneck :-)] Baptist) is “pretty good” — the baptism metaphor is one that seems to be so often missed for the operation of the Holy Spirit and there is a robust corrective here — but as I have begun to see, even it has some problems, imposed by where it found itself in the Calvinist/Arminian split.
I am one crazy Evangelinut. I see things espoused as doctrines on either the Calvinist or the Arminian side that seem to be missing a unified picture. The Calvinists have a harder time appreciating the things associated with choice and will; the Arminians have a harder time appreciating the things associated with destiny. The theological formulations on both side lack force in either one area or the other.
God seems to be saying — don’t get so cocky. Learn from the character of Christ, which needs the bible, and yet transcends what mere human eyes can glean from the bible.
Oh, Mary did this, or oh, Mary did that.
What is it you imagine is “Catholic bashing” about this article?
no
yokay
Duh! Anyone can see that for themselves and decide for themselves. Are you the thread traffic police who presumes to tell Freepers what threads they can read now?
Care to comment on the topic instead of condemning it automatically?
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