***The Reformed elect have no choice but to follow the indwelling HS and have no need of the Bible.***
The sentence is nonsense. That’s like saying “Dear, I have all the parts to assemble this gym set for the boys, you can go ahead and throw out the assembly instructions.” You’ll not see one of the Reformed who doesn’t regularly, if not daily, read and study the Bible for its wisdom, instruction, correction, and understanding from God. It is the HS who gives us understanding of what we have read.
Ah! maybe there is where the problem lies.
***That’s like saying “Dear, I have all the parts to assemble this gym set for the boys, you can go ahead and throw out the assembly instructions.” You’ll not see one of the Reformed who doesn’t regularly, if not daily, read and study the Bible for its wisdom, instruction, correction, and understanding from God. It is the HS who gives us understanding of what we have read.***
The Reformed claim is that the indwelling HS leads and guides and frogmarches all the elect to Heaven. If the knowledge is indwelling, of what use is a translation of a translation of a translation?
And all that Scripture means to the non elect is a cruel taunt from a cruel God who waves eternal salvation in front of them while telling them that they can never have it.
Where do you find in the Bible such instruction? In Timothy it says it is "profitable" or "useful" (but it doesn't even specify what constitutes scriptures and who determines if they are). And where does it say in the Bible that one has to read it (privately or not) every day?
And from the Reformed point of view, what does it matter if you read scriptures or don't read them?
Your "understanding" does not affect your salvation, as nothing that you do or don't do does. So, it really doesn't matter what you do or even if you pray, or even sin: your destiny has been determined before you were even born, according to your theology, and nothing will change that (although the Bible says otherwise).
But if you read 2 Timothy (that Protestants love to spout), look closely at what it says:
So, according to the author, the scriptures are known from infancy?
It also says that scriptures can make you wise, and that wisdom somehow makes you faithful, which saves you. So, in other words, the Bible can "save" you? Wow!
You will also notice that the same paragraph says that the "scriptures you have known from infancy [sic]" can help you attain salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ? Assuming 2 Tim was written by "Paul," as is widely held by fndamentalists but equally widely rejected by scholars, it would have been written probably between 55-60 AD. A that time there were no written books of the New Testament to help lead anyone to salvation through faith in Jesus Christ!
It would also mean that the infants who could "read" the scriptures and "know" them would have been born around the time of Jesus' Crucifixion (20-25 years earlier)! In other words, the infants in those days knew the scriptures by "osmosis?" LOL!
The most logical concusion one could deduce from this is that 2 Tim was written by someone other than St. Paul, but before 130 AD (since it is included in various canons after that date).
In otherwords, 2 Timothy, the one book the Protestants so love to quote from, appears to be a forgery.