So you are saying that you sat down at a Bible one day, tabula rasa, and discovered what you believe today? No one taught you to believe in the Trinity? You just found that for yourself?
When you say "we" who do you mean, yourself in the royal sense or a group that influenced you?
I mean your belief is your business, but one shouldn't pretend that the doctrine came first, then is "found" in the Bible.
No, the doctrines I believe today were initially taught to me - just like what is describe in scriptures - to teach the doctrines to others.
I have since gone back into the scriptures, challenged those doctrines and found that they met the teaching of scripture.
I mean your belief is your business, but one shouldn't pretend that the doctrine came first, then is "found" in the Bible.
HUH???? Again, don't know what you are driving at? I don't by any means believe (or pretend) that doctrine came first then scripture. I have said - and go up thread and you'll find it - what you insinuate. The doctrines I ascribe to were derived from scripture, not superimposed upon scripture. Even the quote of mine states so.
Your commentary makes no sense - take an evening and sleep on it.
What irony! You use the phrase, "royal sense" yet seem to neglect that Scripture uses the term "nobility" (a royal term) to describe a process which you seem to raise as somehow "suspect!"
Do you know how the Bible defines "nobility?" In fact, it's linked to a very specific people group (the Bereans) -- and was contrasted with another very specific people group (the Thessalonians):
Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians... (Acts 17:11)
Now why were they deemed "more noble?"
(1) for they received the message with great eagerness
AND (2) and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.
No one taught you to believe in the Trinity? You just found that for yourself?...I mean your belief is your business, but one shouldn't pretend that the doctrine came first, then is "found" in the Bible.
Admit it. You don't have a "clue" about the above-mentioned Berean confirmation process, now do you? When you reduce the clear teaching of the Bible and the apostles and the prophets to simply some post-Bible teachers who are you intending to exclude as our teachers? The Holy Spirit? Biblical writers? Their spiritual descendents who act as teachers generations later? Aren't they all Biblically noble in, as you say, "the royal sense?" And if you exclude them, why? (Has some cultic group influenced you?)
But, of course, the main consideration of nobility is not simply receptivity to God's revealed truth, but the ability to confirm a recent teaching with foundational truth -- to discern if the latter revelation matches the consistency of the former.
Bottom-line: The Holy Spirit spoke through the prophets; the Son of God testified of Himself: 16We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. 17For he received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased." 18We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain. 19And we have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. 20Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. 21For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. (2 Peter 1:16-21)
The Holy Spirit has spoken indirectly thru men; and simultaneously, He has not yielded His role as direct Teacher to some:
20But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth. 21I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth. 22Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a man is the antichrist—he denies the Father and the Son. 23No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also...27As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit—just as it has taught you, remain in him. (1 John 2:20-23, 27)
A good teacher will use curricula produced under a publishing house (like the Holy Spirit uses the Bible) and will also teach directly (as the Holy Spirit does by anointing people).
This is in contrast to apparent counterfeiters like yourself, who try to vie for some apparent "conflict" by pitting godly teachers and apostles of God "vs." the Bible.