God’s Word doesn’t instruct that it’s sufficient. If God’s Word was sufficient, Our Lord would not have sent the Apostles out to preach. He would have ordered them to sit down and start writing the Gospels, and then hand out texts. Since the Gospels were not written for several decades after the death and Resurrection of Our Lord, anyone who declaims oral tradition needs to first demonstrate why Jesus left a Church without any New Testament with which to convey His Word, and why He would deprive anyone of the sole deposit of faith for roughly forty to fifty years.
As I stated, Sola Scriptura demands that matters of faith depend only on Scripture, yet Sola Scriptura is a concoction of Protestant traditon, not anything based in the Scripture it gives sole power to. If there’s no proof in Scripture that Scripture alone is efficacious, on what basis do you believe the doctrine of Sola Scriptura?
With regard to “vain repetition”, I recommend reading Psalm 136, and see if you can identify any repetition.
I also recommend Revelation 4:8:
“And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all round and within, and day and night they never cease to sing, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!”
Are the angels defying Christ? That would make them demons.
So what’s the definition of “repetition” vs. Jesus’ words “VAIN repetition”?
The definition of “vain” is as follows:
“Characteristic of false pride; having an exaggerated sense of self-importance”
Jesus’ specifically condemned VAIN repetition, not “repetition” itself. Since you place the utmost importance in every word of Scripture, I find it puzzling that you ignore this adjective for the sake of condeming any kind of repetition whatsoever. The Lord made clear that vanity in prayer is a sin - i.e., the Pharisees on the street corner vs. praying in your room where only God sees you. Thus, repetitive prayer designed to draw attention to oneself instead of to God is worthy of condemnation, but to extend this to all repetitive prayer is not exegetically sound, since the angels contradict this very command.
>>God’s Word doesn’t instruct that it’s sufficient.<<
On the contrary, it does. Why would God leave us His word to guide adnd direct if it werent’ sufficient?
Ps 119:160 - “The sum of your word is truth, and every one of your righteous rules endures forever.”
Moses instructed not to change the Word in the OT, the angel warned John not to change it in the NT. Why would such warnings exist if scripture wasn’t sufficient? Why would such care be necessary?
>>He would have ordered them to sit down and start writing the Gospels, and then hand out texts.<<
All in His time, according to His perfect plan. Read John 16. The Holy Spirit would come to them at the appointed time, and at the appointed time would remind them of what He had spoken to them. The oral tradition came directly from first-hand accounts. Paul’s writings and teachings were written as letters and sent to individual churches to be read and passed along to others. Paul based his understandings through the Spirit on what was already written. The Bereans didn’t accept his teachings until they compared them to scripture. Scripture is the benchmark - not fallible, sinful men in funny looking hats.
>>Vain = “Characteristic of false pride; having an exaggerated sense of self-importance”<<
And “Hail Mary” is exactly that.
We repeat the choruses in many hymns, that does not make them vain. David’s psalms used repetitive text to glorify God, that is not vain. The angels worship the Lord using repetitive language, that is not vain.
Repetitive hailing and giving glory & grace to a dead female sinner; and expecting her to pray/petition/intercede for you IS vain. And it will gain nothing. We have only one who intercedes to God the Father (the ONLY “Holy Father”, by the way), and that’s God the Son - Jesus Christ.
>>Jesus’ specifically condemned VAIN repetition, not “repetition” itself. Since you place the utmost importance in every word of Scripture, I find it puzzling that you ignore this adjective for the sake of condeming any kind of repetition whatsoever.<<
I most certainly did not ignore it. I suggest you go back and re-read my earlier post, I included the word ‘vain’.
Secondly, I was not equating ‘vain repititions’ to any prayer offered in Scripture. I equated vain repititions to the ‘Hail Mary’ chants and the Emergent Church’s ‘Sinner’s Prayer’ - neither of which we are exhorted to do according to Scripture.