“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that all God’s people may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
At first blush, it seems like a slam dunk. But consider the following questions.
Scripture equips a man "for every good work," but are good works sufficient for salvation?
What constitutes Scripture? The Catholic canon or the Protestant canon?
Was the New Testament canonized when Paul wrote this letter?
Which canon of the Old Testament was Paul referring to at the time of his writing? The Septuagint or the Alexandrian canon?
Who determined that this letter of Paul to Timothy constituted Scripture?
When?
By what authority?
Does that authority exist today?
Did this authority exist at the time of the Reformation?
"God's People" is actually better translated as "the man of God." Does this phrase refer to priests/deacons?
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Also consider these passages in light of Luther's doctrine of "The Bible Alone": 1 Timothy 3:15, Matthew 18:17
Relative to your post. . .
It reminds me of a lot of the questions the . . .
RELIGIOUS
leaders of Christ’s dusty pathed days
asked Him.
Didn’t you leave out the angels on a pinhead question?
I think the deuterocanonical books may demonstrate a problem with tradition/scripture/magisterium as infallible since they seem to show them to be in conflict.
The Council of Trent seems to me to have changed the Catholic Church’s tradition with the inclusion of the Apocrypha. I am not a scholar so this is just my understanding. It leads to the question: which was right, tradition before the Council of Trent or the edict of the Church after the Council of Trent? Tradition or Magisterium?
I also wonder about a vote itself when there is exclusion of Protestants voting in the Council — is the Catholic Church the “Church” if great numbers of Christians are excluded? Is the Holy Spirit’s work divided? Or is the Church something greater than the Catholic Church (and if so can one part of a divided body claim authority for the whole without all the parts represented in the decision making process?).
2 Timothy 3 presupposes an understanding of what scripture is, and so in my quickly formulated view, where there is unresolved dispute among Christians, there is no infallible scripture. In other words . . . the additions by the Catholic Church are apocrypha because we do not hold them in common.
Blast away! And take this in a good spirit. I think the divide in the churches lead men to take positions and defend positions prematurely sometimes, contrary to their personal growth in Christ, in response to the assertions of others across some theological or denominational divide. In other words, sometimes we argue before we understand and discuss differences when what is in common is more important. Do we get a bigger slice of heaven if we have bigger brains? I don’t think so. St. Joseph of Cupertino is a good reference if you don’t know of him.
http://www.ewtn.com/library/MARY/JOSEPH.htm