Questions for “Bible Christians” that they can’t answer

There are 38 questions + a few bonus questions. I have split them into two separate posts of 20 and 18 + bonus questions. Are you ready?

1. Where did Jesus give instructions that the Christian faith should be based exclusively on a book?

2. Other than the specific command to John to pen the Revelation, where did Jesus tell His apostles to write anything down and compile it into an authoritative book?

3. Where in the New Testament do the apostles tell future generations that the Christian faith will be based solely on a book?

4. Some Protestants claim that Jesus condemned all oral tradition (e.g., Matt 15:3, 6; Mark 7:813). If so, why does He bind His listeners to oral tradition by telling them to obey the scribes and Pharisees when they “sit on Moses’ seat” (Matt 23:2)?

5. Some Protestants claim that St. Paul condemned all oral tradition (Col 2:8). If so, why does he tell the Thessalonians to “stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught, whether by word of mouth or by letter” (2 Thes 2:15) and praises the Corinthians because they “hold firmly to the traditions” (1 Cor 11:2)?

(And why does the Protestant NIV change the word “tradition” to “teaching”?)

6. If the authors of the New Testament believed in sola Scriptura, why did they sometimes draw on oral Tradition as authoritative and as God’s Word (Matt 2:23; 23:2; 1 Cor 10:4; 1 Pet 3:19; Jude 9, 14 15)?

8. How do we know who wrote the books that we call Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Hebrews, and 1, 2, and 3 John?

9. On what authority, or on what principle, would we accept as Scripture books that we know were not written by one of the twelve apostles?

10. Where in the Bible do we find an inspired and infallible list of books that should belong in the Bible? (e.g., Is the Bible’s Table of Contents inspired?)

11. How do we know, from the Bible alone, that the individual books of the New Testament are inspired, even when they make no claim to be inspired?

12. How do we know, from the Bible alone, that the letters of St. Paul, who wrote to first- century congregations and individuals, are meant to be read by us as Scripture 2000 years later?

13. Where does the Bible claim to be the sole authority for Christians in matters of faith and morals?

14. Most of the books of the New Testament were written to address very specific problems in the early Church, and none of them are a systematic presentation of Christian faith and theology. On what biblical basis do Protestants think that everything that the apostles taught is captured in the New Testament writings?

15. If the books of the New Testament are “self-authenticating” through the ministry of the Holy Spirit to each individual, then why was there confusion in the early Church over which books were inspired, with some books being rejected by the majority?

16. If the meaning of the Bible is so clear—so easily interpreted—and if the Holy Spirit leads every Christian to interpret it for themselves, then why are there over 33,000 Protestant denominations, and millions of individual Protestants, all interpreting the Bible differently?

17. Who may authoritatively arbitrate between Christians who claim to be led by the Holy Spirit into mutually contradictory interpretations of the Bible?

18. Since each Protestant must admit that his or her interpretation is fallible, how can any Protestant in good conscience call anything heresy or bind another Christian to a particular belief?

19. Protestants usually claim that they all agree “on the important things.” Who is able to decide authoritatively what is important in the Christian faith and what is not?

20. How did the early Church evangelize and overthrow the Roman Empire, survive and prosper almost 350 years, without knowing for sure which books belong in the canon of Scripture?

Answer to Bible+(any fanciful whim to nullify the Bible) Christians with a followup question:

>>1) Where did Jesus give instructions the Christian faith should be based exclusively on a book?

The root word for scripture is “script” and it necessarily implies something written. Since 2Tim3:16 says “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable...,” and John20:31 says “These things are written that you may believe, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” seems like a pretty airtight case.

There is no source of revelation from a God, who is an unapproachable light, other than what He chose to reveal himself. Unmoored from that sure certainty, the Bible+___ christians descend into philosophy and mystical miasma and try to “know the mind” of God beyond what He chose to reveal.

That is the theological equivalent of a puppy chasing its own tail.

Followup Question: Where did Jesus tell the pope to wear a frock?

>>2. Other than the specific command to John to pen the Revelation, where did Jesus tell his apostles to write anything down and compile it into an authoritative book?

Question has the same tenor as “other than the ending Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?”

We know that the purity of doctrine was not preserved always and everywhere through the tradition by the living voice but repeatedly corrupted and adulterated. Because “new” and “special” revelations might not restore pure doctrine, God instructed Moses that His doctrine should be comprehended in writing.

God wrote the Decalog (10 commandments) Himself with “His finger” and commanded the writings be put into the ark and be read before all Israel....Deut 31:10-26.

For good measure, God adds in Rev22:18, “I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if ANYONE adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book and if ANYONE takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of the life and in the holy city.....”{Emphasis mine}

Followup Question: Why did the Church run out Gnostics as heretics who claimed they had special knowledge/revelation apart from scripture?

>>3. Where in the New Testament do the apostles tell future generations that the Christian faith will be based solely on a book?

First, this “[a] book” is God-breathed and unlike any other. Next, look at John 20:31. Next, Paul chastises Galatians for falling away from the true gospel and writes that in an epistle. He binds himself to the point of anathemizing himself if he preached a different gospel.

Hypothetically, if Paul began to teach a heresy (arrogate himself to be a pope-type figure to fashion new doctrine willy-nilly based on Aristotle or Scholastics or others), it would have been Paul’s letter to Galatians that would have impeached his pretensions.

In theological disputes with the Jews on anything they said, the Roman church insisted that Jewish arguments must be examined and measured according to the norm of this scripture, in order that whatever agrees with it may be approved and whatever is strange or not in agreement disapproved.

What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.

The Reformers’ position was always exactly that; not the “book only” caricature of an argument.

>>4. Some Protestants claim that Jesus condemned all oral traditions....

The erswhile first pope writes in 1Peter1:16-18, “You were ransomed from the futile ways which you inherited from the tradition of your fathers not with gold or silver but with the precious blood of the Lamb without blemish, Christ; therefore be holy in all your conduct, AS IT IS WRITTEN.” {emphasis added by me}.

The Jews will no more concede that their traditions were corrupted anymore than Rome will concede that their traditions were received from apostles in a broken succession from bishop to bishop.

The Talmudist embellish by claiming Moses received from God not only what he wrote but also a mystical and secret exposition of the law, which he neither wrote nor wanted written but handed down orally and delivered to posterity from hand to hand.

As the prophet wrote in Ecclesiastes1:9, “....there is nothing new under the sun.”

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