“So Sola Scriptura means you get to pick and choose which parts of Scripture to follow and which ones you don’t? “
No, I’m using the rest of the Bible to interpret each section. No where are we DIRECTED to follow this example, and elsewhere we are given direction such as ‘If he won’t work, he won’t eat’. Elsewhere, we have the example of Paul and others working.
I give regularly to support missionaries who devote themselves full time to preaching to the lost. I give to help the poor. But I do not sell everything, because it is not directed, and there are other examples leading me to think it doesn’t apply universally.
An example of how this works - last week, my Baptist pastor preached on fasting. Like most Baptists, I’m fonder of pot lucks than fasting. However, he pointed out that Jesus didn’t say IF you fast, but WHEN you fast.
Excellent point. I need to start fasting with some regularity. It isn’t what I want, but it IS directed in scripture.
Mr. Rogers:
I would suggest 2 books, neither of which were written by Catholics, but both personally find are well done. First, “The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine: Vol 1, The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100-600), by Jaroslav Pelikan. For the record, he was a Lutheran when he did the work, but later in life became an Eastern Orthodox Christian, due to his ancestry on one of his parents side being Eastern European. He had a great respect for the Western Catholic Tradition and wrote a moving editorial about John Paul II, after his death, and the workd JPII did to heal the breach between Rome and the East.
The second work, much more pithy, is a work by the Anglican Church History scholar Henry Chadwhich called The Early Church published in The Penguin History of the Church.
Hope this helps
He told the rich young ruler to sell all he had and follow Him because He knew that his riches kept Him from following Christ after he asked what he must do to be saved. That doesn’t mean WE have to. This was a direct order for HIM to follow, not us. Now, if he tells you to do it, you’d better.