That question doesn't even have a place in the discussion...The question used to be, which came first the church or the scriptures??? And of course the correct answer is the scriptures...Now you have moved the goalposts to the NT...The question is not even worth discussing...
Still doesn't matter...God is the author...Not the church especially as you know it...
The issue is: the bible is complete...It that isn't the truth, then the apostle John lied when he said all we need to know for salvation is in the scriptures...And if there is one lie in the scriptures, it is probably then full of lies...
In which case, your religion and its tradition is based on a book full of lies...The bible is right and complete or we all lose...
You think your religion chose the scriptures??? A little (lot) odd that your religion wrote the scriptures and yet scripture in there that says all we need to know for our salvation is within the scriptures...Don't ya think???
Fact is, the very earliest fathers confirmed that nothing is to be believed outside the written scriptures...Of course that didn't last long...
No your religion did not write the scriptures...And yes, your religion did write its own scriptures...They started out in Africa with most of your church fathers being African...
The scriptures I read started out in Antioch and Jerusalem and was written by Jews...
No, the goalposts are exactly settled: there’s an old and a new testament. The Jews preserved what came before Christ, and most of it became what we now recognize as the old/BC scripture. What came after Christ was selected and preserved by the Jews and other than the Jews. For argument’s sake, let’s say it was selected and preserved, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, by the early Christians. Or is there a problem with that? The early Christians, to most believers, was “the Church.” That church, loosely the church of Christendom, lasted (despite challenges in heresies and apostasies) until various opponents to various beliefs separated themselves from it—Luther, Calvin, Wycliffe, Knox, Henry VIII, etc., etc.—and formed splinter churches based on their arguments with the original church. If the Church (again, meaning Roman Catholic Church) wasn’t what preserved the entire Bible, who WAS performing that function up until the Reformation? From whom did the protestants wish to separate themselves? Surely not the so-called early Christians who hadn’t been around for quite some time. They broke from the only Christian church they (the Europeans, and later others) knew at the time.
I share your belief that the Bible is right and complete, inspired and protected by God; but it’s also immensely ambiguous and poetic. Americans and even modern Brits barely understand Shakespeare’s language, and they’re expected to understand the Bible’s? Call me naive or stupid, but I like to have experts help me through it, the Cliff Notes AND the footnotes, if you like. And that’s just ONE of the reasons for the at-least equal significance of the Church.
Unfortunately, John (and the other evangelists and epistle-writers) didn’t quite say (to paraphrase another John) “all you need is scripture.” What John said was, “These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name” (20:31). Paul added, “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be equipped, prepared for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16–17). If the Bible’s all that’s necessary, why baptize? WHO baptizes, if not some representative of church? Does tithing come from the NT? If so, who collects it, to whom does it go? How does one keep holy the Sabbath—does a personal reading of scripture fulfill that obligation? And of course, there’s the Luther issue: are good works necessary for salvation, or can we skate through life simply by reading and interpreting the Bible as we choose? What about those who can’t read? The list could go on . . .
The Bible’s absolutely necessary, but it simply cannot be exclusively necessary, for salvation.