Scripture existed before Christ was born. He used it -- remember?:
"It is written...."
So please don't fling that tired Catholic canard.
So it was utterly pointless for Christ to have established His Church and utterly ridiculous for Him to tell Peter and His Apostles to “Go forth and teach...”
No. We do what Christ has charged us to do. As for teaching authority, that is with God. Through his word and his Holy Spirit. Not the Catholic Church. Besides... it teaches you worship the same God as Muslims, as well as contradicting Christ himself! How on earth can Catholicism claim ANY authority? Roman Catholicism is man-made. Catholics don't even hold God's very word ABOVE human tradition!
It does not occur to you that precisely by their honest inquiry by placing “their faith and trust in God,” that they found their Protestant beliefs completely false ands converted to Catholicism.
Matthew 24:11 comes to mind regarding the Catholic Church and its effect on others.
Sorry. Invective doesn't change the fact that Roman Catholicism is a cult.
Try reading the Bible. You make it sound like doing that is somehow bad! For shame. Try it. You'll find, if you're honest with yourself, that Rome has lied and continues to lie to you.
Hoss
Please: NO STRAW MAN’S ARGUMENT
“Scripture existed before Christ was born. He used it — remember?:”
Yes, there were several written texts, but it took nearly 300 years for the early Church fathers to sort out and sift and cross check various texts against the received oral tradition to formally pronounce that THE texts chosen in the Synod of Rome in AD 382 is the AUTHENTIC Word of God. That authenticity was based on infallible Petrine authority that did not evaporate ELEVEN centuries later with the curse of the Reformation that triggered a mudslide of conflicting interpretations that has become a caricature in this day and age.
Speaking of canards, everyone and their grandmother apparently is now allowed to crack open the pages of the Bible and offer us his/her “authoritative” interpretation and done so we are told “by the grace of God.” Just ask the Rev. Jeremiah Wrights and Joel Osteens or the mainline Protestant denominations who now offer scriptural support for allowing married gays and lesbians as pastors and bishops.
Playing internet theologian by citing a quote from here and there is the stuff for shallow Bible Christians. The relevant question is why eminent Protestant theologians after a lifetime of study, scholarship, teaching, and preaching have converted to Catholicism.
Bible Christians show no interest in serious intellectual inquiry. Many of them are clueless on the works of Augustine, Aquinas, Newman or Benedict whose works are standard fare in the theological curricula of major colleges and universities around the world and indeed after whom universities have been named. But this is the deep end of the theological pool in which Bible Christian cannot comfortably swim in.