SCRIPTURE ALONE ("SOLA SCRIPTURA")

http://www.scripturecatholic.com/scripture_alone.html ^ | John Salza

[pjr12345]

How is it that a church in Rome grew to dominate all of Christendom? What happened to all the other churches? Were there any that disagreed with the Roman seat of power? What happened to them?

The answer to these questions help demonstrate that the emergence of a church of Rome as the dominant power in the Christian world was mostly political rather than spiritual. Rome's rise in the religious world was just another way for very creative politicos to manage the fast splintering Roman empire. In fact, the RCC enjoyed even greater worldly power than its predecessor with its once-removed, puppet master rule over much of the world.

While it's very stylish and refreshing, I'm not buying your really cool mystical approach. However, I do appreciate your acknowledgment and rebuke of certain obvious abuses of the RCC. There are many here who actually defend such atrocities!

[blue-duncan]

It must be close to "neener's Friday"

When a man steals your wife, there is no better revenge than to let him keep her.
Sacha Guitry

After marriage, husband and wife become two sides of a coin; they just can't face each other, but still they stay together.
Hemant Joshi

By all means marry. If you get a good wife, you'll be happy. If you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher.
Socrates

Woman inspires us to great things, and prevents us from achieving them.
Dumas

The great question... which I have not been able to answer... is, "What does a woman want?
Sigmund Freud

I had some words with my wife, and she had some paragraphs with me.
Anonymous


"Some people ask the secret of our long marriage. We take time to go to a restaurant two times a week. A little candlelight, dinner, soft music and dancing. She goes Tuesdays, I go Fridays."
Henny Youngman


"I don't worry about terrorism. I was married for two years."
Sam Kinison


"There's a way of transferring funds that is even faster than electronic banking. It's called marriage."
James Holt McGavran


"I've had bad luck with both my wives. The first one left me, and the second one didn't."
Patrick Murray

Two secrets to keep your marriage brimming

1. Whenever you're wrong, admit it,

2. Whenever you're right, shut up.
Nash

The most effective way to remember your wife's birthday is to forget it once...
Anonymous

You know what I did before I married? Anything I wanted to.
Henny Youngman


My wife and I were happy for twenty years. Then we met.
Rodney Dangerfield


A good wife always forgives her husband when she's wrong.
Milton Berle


Marriage is the only war where one sleeps with the enemy.
Anonymous


A man inserted an 'ad' in the classifieds: "Wife wanted". Next day he received a hundred letters. They all said the same thing: "You can have mine."
Anonymous

First Guy (proudly): "My wife's an angel!"
Second Guy: "You're lucky, mine's still alive."

[xzins]

Who got banned?

[xzins]

[P-Marlowe]

First Guy (proudly): "My wife's an angel!"
Second Guy: "You're lucky, mine's still alive."

I think this would be a good place to lock the thread.

[pjr12345]

So it is not just the Catholic Church that claims to be the "one", every church group believes that, else people wouldn't belong to that particular church.

That's not entirely true. Only God knows the heart of every person, whether he has been added to the Church or not. This is where "judge not lest ye be judged" applies. Neither I nor anyone I know in my congregation has the audacity to believe that only folks who attend our assembly and/or others like it will be saved.

And there we have the crux of it all! The Church is comprised of individuals in right relationships with God. It is NOT comprised of congregations of believers, or denominations of believers. Any human organization that claims it controls access to Christ's Church simply doesn't.

I feel compelled to say that this is not a jab at the RCC. However, given its most public position, it serves as an easy example (target?).

[Invincibly Ignorant]

And yet God allowed the likes of the Pharisees to manipulate His word and decieve the Jewish nation. (For a time)

Oh really? You wouldn't even have 2/3's of your Bible if it werent for those "deceitful" Pharisees. The Pharisees never "manipulated" Hebrew Scripture. As a matter of fact they preserved it. Your "Messiah" may have been irritated and non accepting of the "Oral" Torah but never by the Hebrew writings composed of the Torah, Nevi'im (Prophets) or Kethuvim (writings) which now compose 2/3rds of your Bible.

[Vicomte13]

1953 was before Vatican II, when Catholics were all admonished to be ecumenical.

[Vicomte13]

"However, I do appreciate your acknowledgment and rebuke of certain obvious abuses of the RCC."

Good.
Now let's talk about your particular denomination, and we will lay all of its horrors out on the table too.

Unless you're a Quaker or some tiny sect, if the history of your church goes back more than about 40 years in America then you've joined an organization that's been eyeball deep in blood and oppression. Episcopalians? Prebyterians? Lutherans? Baptists? As bloody and evil as the Catholics, historically.

Today Catholics and Protestants are not bloody and evil, but they all were, and in the process made it impossible to refer back to any particular old denomination with anything other than cringing embarrassment that one is affiliated with it.

The scythe of history cuts all ways here.

Neither Catholic Authoritarianism nor Sola Scripturalism, by themselves, ushered in ages of light. They both ushered in frantic murder, torture and death in their quest to assert authority over people who didn't buy it.

You "don't buy" my viewpoint?
So what?
I don't get points in heaven for convincing you or anyone else of anything.
I think what I think for good reasons. And when I see Christians of different denominations, including my own, behaving like brats on the playground I have no compunction at all about bringout out the evil history of all of the old Christian Churches, and stating, as a general rule, that those who live in glass houses are in no position to throw stones.

[Notwithstanding]

Informing people of the indisputable fact that the Bible contains no requirement of "sola scriptura" is evangelization. This undescores that "sola scriptura" is a man-made doctrine of the plethora of protestant pretenders to the countless minor papacies such men will not even admit exist.

Let those who have eyes to read or ears to hear recieve the message and choose their response:

Will I follow the non-scriptural doctrine of sola scriptura while claiming that the Catholic doctrine of Tradition and Scripture is unsound because I think that Catholic doctrines are non-scriptural?

In other words, will I base my rejection of Catholic doctrines on a lack of scriptural authority, while hypocritically resting the demand for scriptural authority itself on my own NON-scriptural doctrine of sola scriptura?

[Lil Flower]

The fact is that historical atrocities were ridiculously lopsided in favor of the papists.

If this true, how come there are Protestants? If it was so lopsided then wouldn't the Catholics have won, so to speak?

[ScubieNuc]

But there has never been a time where God kept himself hidden from mankind.

Like P-Marlowe said, I never said that all of mankind or even all of the Jewish nation was decieved. If I wasn't clear I appologize.

My point was a counter-point to someone who said God wouldn't leave his message in the hands of people who would decieve. That is obviously false, because there have been people in the Priesthood throughout the Old Testament and New, who decieved others as to what God's message was. This doesn't mean that all Priests or Pharisees were decievers. Here are some examples of the good and the bad of the Pharisees....

Matt 5:20 For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed [the righteousness] of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.

Matt 16:11,12 How is it that ye do not understand that I spake [it] not to you concerning bread, that ye should beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees?

Then understood they how that he bade [them] not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.

Sincerely

[Uncle Chip]

This is why the Judaism of the Temple was so very different from the Judaism of the synagogue since the destruction of the Temple. When the old Temple was up, the religion was not about texts, it's core was the blood sacrifices of the priesthood. That is still true. The blood sacrifice of Jesus, in the body and the blood of the Mass, and the other sacraments, are THE direct access to God. This is through the consecrated priesthood, as it has been since Moses, Aaron and the tabernacle. It remains so. The center of Templar Judaism was not the Torah, it was the sacrifices of the altar. The sacrifices never ended. That is what happens, still, at the Mass, in unbroken succession back to Aaron's sacrifice, renewed by Jesus'.

This is an excellent observation. It appears that the rituals of the Mass were modeled in part after the rituals of the Jewish Temple. Consider the priest at the Mass turning to the laity and lifting up the host; in the OT the priest would do that with a wafer on certain occasions. The washing of the fingers at the Mass is a traditional Pharisaical practice. And there are more similarities with the colored robes, candles, etc.

The Jewish leaders became so deeply invested in their sacrificial system that they forgot the reason for it in the first place. That reason was SIN --- rebellion against the Word of God. The more they sinned, the more animals had to die. Killing animals was the priest's livelihood.

And when Jesus offered Himself as the Lamb of God to take away the sins of the Israel and the world, He was challenging their religio-economic livelihood and sacrificial traditions.

They were so attached to their sacrificial Tradition that they had forgotten that it was given to help them to keep the commandments. God did not want their sacrifices, He wanted their obedience to the commandments. Instead they would rather sin and sacrifice, sin and sacrifice in their ritualistic system.

Calvary and the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD ended that nonsense. But then what happens? The system that Jesus ended and those Pharisaical traditions filter their way into the Church by the 4th century, and now the Church has evolved its own sacrificial system called the Mass with traditions, rituals, and things Pharisaical in direct opposition to the Scriptures.

The Mass is a continuation of that sacrificial system that God said that He took no pleasure in and put an end to with the death of Jesus on Calvary. He said that He would rather have obedience to His word than sacrifices that make it ineffective. If the sacrifices at the Temple did not save the Jews, then what makes people think that the sacrifice of the Mass as a continuation thereof will save them? It didn't and it won't.

[Lil Flower]

Calvary and the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD ended that nonsense.

Then why is God going to reestablish the sacrificial system with the buildig of another jewish temple at the beginning of the tribulation period?

[ScubieNuc]

I like your observation and analysis.

[Uncle Chip]

Then why is God going to reestablish the sacrificial system with the buildig of another jewish temple at the beginning of the tribulation period?

Excellent question that I have pondered on as well. I believe that when someone makes a wrong turn, the best way to correct it is to go back to where the wrong turn was made and make the right one this time. The Jews will go back to the place where and when it all went wrong for them.

The Jews today know by reading the Torah that they have no forgiveness of sins without the sacrificial system of the Temple in Jerusalem. They will return to that system that was an integral part of their history. This time though God will intervene sovereignly to help them to make the right turn from that which cannot save to their Messiah who can and will save them.

[Uncle Chip]

Thank you --- and I like yours as well.

[Aquinasfan]

How many churches did Christ build?

I assume you'd be happy with the answer of "one". Please name it.

The Church that can trace its leadership from Peter through Pope Benedict XVI.

1. St. Peter (32-67)
2. St. Linus (67-76)
3. St. Anacletus (Cletus) (76-88)
4. St. Clement I (88-97)
5. St. Evaristus (97-105)
6. St. Alexander I (105-115)
7. St. Sixtus I (115-125) -- also called Xystus I
8. St. Telesphorus (125-136)
9. St. Hyginus (136-140)
10. St. Pius I (140-155)
11. St. Anicetus (155-166)
12. St. Soter (166-175)
13. St. Eleutherius (175-189)
14. St. Victor I (189-199)
15. St. Zephyrinus (199-217)
16. St. Callistus I (217-22)
17. St. Urban I (222-30)
18. St. Pontain (230-35)
19. St. Anterus (235-36)
20. St. Fabian (236-50)
21. St. Cornelius (251-53)
22. St. Lucius I (253-54)
23. St. Stephen I (254-257)
24. St. Sixtus II (257-258)
25. St. Dionysius (260-268)
26. St. Felix I (269-274)
27. St. Eutychian (275-283)
28. St. Caius (283-296) -- also called Gaius
29. St. Marcellinus (296-304)
30. St. Marcellus I (308-309)
31. St. Eusebius (309 or 310)
32. St. Miltiades (311-14)
33. St. Sylvester I (314-35)
34. St. Marcus (336)
35. St. Julius I (337-52)
36. Liberius (352-66)
37. St. Damasus I (366-83)
38. St. Siricius (384-99)
39. St. Anastasius I (399-401)
40. St. Innocent I (401-17)
41. St. Zosimus (417-18)
42. St. Boniface I (418-22)
43. St. Celestine I (422-32)
44. St. Sixtus III (432-40)
45. St. Leo I (the Great) (440-61)
46. St. Hilarius (461-68)
47. St. Simplicius (468-83)
48. St. Felix III (II) (483-92)
49. St. Gelasius I (492-96)
50. Anastasius II (496-98)
51. St. Symmachus (498-514)
52. St. Hormisdas (514-23)
53. St. John I (523-26)
54. St. Felix IV (III) (526-30)
55. Boniface II (530-32)
56. John II (533-35)
57. St. Agapetus I (535-36) -- also called Agapitus I
58. St. Silverius (536-37)
59. Vigilius (537-55)
60. Pelagius I (556-61)
61. John III (561-74)
62. Benedict I (575-79)
63. Pelagius II (579-90)
64. St. Gregory I (the Great) (590-604)
65. Sabinian (604-606)
66. Boniface III (607)
67. St. Boniface IV (608-15)
68. St. Deusdedit (Adeodatus I) (615-18)
69. Boniface V (619-25)
70. Honorius I (625-38)
71. Severinus (640)
72. John IV (640-42)
73. Theodore I (642-49)
74. St. Martin I (649-55)
75. St. Eugene I (655-57)
76. St. Vitalian (657-72)
77. Adeodatus (II) (672-76)
78. Donus (676-78)
79. St. Agatho (678-81)
80. St. Leo II (682-83)
81. St. Benedict II (684-85)
82. John V (685-86)
83. Conon (686-87)
84. St. Sergius I (687-701)
85. John VI (701-05)
86. John VII (705-07)
87. Sisinnius (708)
88. Constantine (708-15)
89. St. Gregory II (715-31)
90. St. Gregory III (731-41)
91. St. Zachary (741-52)
92. Stephen II (752) -- Because he died before being consecrated, some lists (including the Vatican's official list) omit him.
93. Stephen III (752-57)
94. St. Paul I (757-67)
95. Stephen IV (767-72)
96. Adrian I (772-95)
97. St. Leo III (795-816)
98. Stephen V (816-17)
99. St. Paschal I (817-24)
100. Eugene II (824-27)
101. Valentine (827)
102. Gregory IV (827-44)
103. Sergius II (844-47)
104. St. Leo IV (847-55)
105. Benedict III (855-58)
106. St. Nicholas I (the Great) (858-67)
107. Adrian II (867-72)
108. John VIII (872-82)
109. Marinus I (882-84)
110. St. Adrian III (884-85)
111. Stephen VI (885-91)
112. Formosus (891-96)
113. Boniface VI (896)
114. Stephen VII (896-97)
115. Romanus (897)
116. Theodore II (897)
117. John IX (898-900)
118. Benedict IV (900-03)
119. Leo V (903)
120. Sergius III (904-11)
121. Anastasius III (911-13)
122. Lando (913-14)
123. John X (914-28)
124. Leo VI (928)
125. Stephen VIII (929-31)
126. John XI (931-35)
127. Leo VII (936-39)
128. Stephen IX (939-42)
129. Marinus II (942-46)
130. Agapetus II (946-55)
131. John XII (955-63)
132. Leo VIII (963-64)
133. Benedict V (964)
134. John XIII (965-72)
135. Benedict VI (973-74)
136. Benedict VII (974-83)
137. John XIV (983-84)
138. John XV (985-96)
139. Gregory V (996-99)
140. Sylvester II (999-1003)
141. John XVII (1003)
142. John XVIII (1003-09)
143. Sergius IV (1009-12)
144. Benedict VIII (1012-24)
145. John XIX (1024-32)
146. Benedict IX (1032-45)
147. Sylvester III (1045) -- Considered by some to be an antipope
148. Benedict IX (1045)
149. Gregory VI (1045-46)
150. Clement II (1046-47)
151. Benedict IX (1047-48)
152. Damasus II (1048)
153. St. Leo IX (1049-54)
154. Victor II (1055-57)
155. Stephen X (1057-58)
156. Nicholas II (1058-61)
157. Alexander II (1061-73)
158. St. Gregory VII (1073-85)
159. Blessed Victor III (1086-87)
160. Blessed Urban II (1088-99)
161. Paschal II (1099-1118)
162. Gelasius II (1118-19)
163. Callistus II (1119-24)
164. Honorius II (1124-30)
165. Innocent II (1130-43)
166. Celestine II (1143-44)
167. Lucius II (1144-45)
168. Blessed Eugene III (1145-53)
169. Anastasius IV (1153-54)
170. Adrian IV (1154-59)
171. Alexander III (1159-81)
172. Lucius III (1181-85)
173. Urban III (1185-87)
174. Gregory VIII (1187)
175. Clement III (1187-91)
176. Celestine III (1191-98)
177. Innocent III (1198-1216)
178. Honorius III (1216-27)
179. Gregory IX (1227-41)
180. Celestine IV (1241)
181. Innocent IV (1243-54)
182. Alexander IV (1254-61)
183. Urban IV (1261-64)
184. Clement IV (1265-68)
185. Blessed Gregory X (1271-76)
186. Blessed Innocent V (1276)
187. Adrian V (1276)
188. John XXI (1276-77)
189. Nicholas III (1277-80)
190. Martin IV (1281-85)
191. Honorius IV (1285-87)
192. Nicholas IV (1288-92)
193. St. Celestine V (1294)
194. Boniface VIII (1294-1303)
195. Blessed Benedict XI (1303-04)
196. Clement V (1305-14)
197. John XXII (1316-34)
198. Benedict XII (1334-42)
199. Clement VI (1342-52)
200. Innocent VI (1352-62)
201. Blessed Urban V (1362-70)
202. Gregory XI (1370-78)
203. Urban VI (1378-89)
204. Boniface IX (1389-1404)
205. Innocent VII (1404-06)
206. Gregory XII (1406-15)
207. Martin V (1417-31)
208. Eugene IV (1431-47)
209. Nicholas V (1447-55)
210. Callistus III (1455-58)
211. Pius II (1458-64)
212. Paul II (1464-71)
213. Sixtus IV (1471-84)
214. Innocent VIII (1484-92)
215. Alexander VI (1492-1503)
216. Pius III (1503)
217. Julius II (1503-13)
218. Leo X (1513-21)
219. Adrian VI (1522-23)
220. Clement VII (1523-34)
221. Paul III (1534-49)
222. Julius III (1550-55)
223. Marcellus II (1555)
224. Paul IV (1555-59)
225. Pius IV (1559-65)
226. St. Pius V (1566-72)
227. Gregory XIII (1572-85)
228. Sixtus V (1585-90)
229. Urban VII (1590)
230. Gregory XIV (1590-91)
231. Innocent IX (1591)
232. Clement VIII (1592-1605)
233. Leo XI (1605)
234. Paul V (1605-21)
235. Gregory XV (1621-23)
236. Urban VIII (1623-44)
237. Innocent X (1644-55)
238. Alexander VII (1655-67)
239. Clement IX (1667-69)
240. Clement X (1670-76)
241. Blessed Innocent XI (1676-89)
242. Alexander VIII (1689-91)
243. Innocent XII (1691-1700)
244. Clement XI (1700-21)
245. Innocent XIII (1721-24)
246. Benedict XIII (1724-30)
247. Clement XII (1730-40)
248. Benedict XIV (1740-58)
249. Clement XIII (1758-69)
250. Clement XIV (1769-74)
251. Pius VI (1775-99)
252. Pius VII (1800-23)
253. Leo XII (1823-29)
254. Pius VIII (1829-30)
255. Gregory XVI (1831-46)
256. Blessed Pius IX (1846-78)
257. Leo XIII (1878-1903)
258. St. Pius X (1903-14)
     
259. Benedict XV (1914-22)
260. Pius XI (1922-39)
261. Pius XII (1939-58)
262. Blessed John XXIII (1958-63)
263. Paul VI (1963-78)
264. John Paul I (1978)
265. John Paul II (1978-2005)
266. Benedict XVI (2005—)

The Catholic Church.

[P-Marlowe]

IIRC, the First bishop of Rome to call himself "The Pope" was Boniface III.

Funny how Jesus told us never to call anyone Father on this earth.

(Matthew 23:9 KJV) And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven.