Just because someone claims to be the one (don't they all and have their ever so good seeming reasons for claiming so to their adherents) doesn't make them so. Just thinking or claiming that yours is the oldest and has the best authorities doesn't make it so either. With that reasoning the people who put Christ to death should have been followed and believed over Him. After all they were the ancient authority. They prove that often the established ancient authority is exactly the one that is desperately wickedly religious. They couldn't understand who Jesus was because they were blinded by their religion. So are many, if not most Catholics blinded by their “authoritive” ancient religion. They can't understand that religion cannot save anyone. Only the person of Jesus Christ can.
It is by grace and only by grace that anyone can be saved. To be saved means that you have been born again. It means that you have been translated from the kingdom of darkness into God's glorious kingdom of light. It means that you have taken a sip of living water and you will never thirst again. It means that your heart of stone has been changed into a heart of flesh. It means that your sins have been washed away by the blood that Jesus shed for you as their payment. It means that behold all things have become new. It means that you are a new creation in Christ Jesus. It means that you have eternal life. It means that Jesus will never leave nor forsake you.
All of this you possess. You are not earning it. It has been bought and paid for by the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ when he hung on the cross and died paying the penalty you owe for your sins.
You will never become saved unless God sees a sincere heart. You cannot fool Him into salvation thinking I will live like hell but go to heaven because of Jesus. God must see a sincere heart that wants to be and do what is right, one that knows it doesn't want to sin any longer. When you come to God with the faith of a child, willing to let Him be your Father through Jesus Christ then at the instant He will save you. He will wash away your sins and the Holy Spirit of God will take up residence in you and you become His temple. Then out of a new heart and overwhelming gratitude for what He has done for you you can then begin to live a productive, holy life because you are His, not to become His.
Nonsense. The Word of God is not open to interpretation by anyone and everyone. The Great Commission given to Peter and his apostles was to “Go forth and teach,...” If one can depend entirely on grace, there is no need to teach.
This was to teach ONE truth and for this purpose ONE Church was established. Before the Bible, there existed the Church with infallible teaching authority of the oral tradition an it exercised its infallible authority to assemble correctly the written canonical texts. These books in the bible did not fall from the skies and robotically self assemble themselves.
If each person follows his/he own idea of what is God’s Word we have a recipe for bedlam from the likes of Joel Osteen to the Moonies and Rev. Jeremiah Wright and everything else in between. The is why Protestantism today has fallen into such disrepair it has become a caricature depending on which congregation one belongs to. This is exactly what the Apostles from Peter and Paul tried to prevent.