Jesus first and foremost gave us the Church, vested with authority. It is the Church that gave us the scriptures, (years after the ascension of our Lord.)
To reject the Church is akin to killing the bird that lays the eggs, saying that all you need are the eggs.
For example, prior to the first Bible, what was the New Testament?
According to Wikipedia,
“Pope Damasus I assembled the first list of books of the Bible at the Council of Rome in 382 CE.”
And prior to the invention of the printing press centuries later, what were the flock to rely on? The Church and her Pope, Bishops and Priests. Outside of them there was not the Christian faith.
And in spite of the printing press and now the radio, TV and internet, the full authority on earth rests in the Church, and not in the Bible alone.
When your first two statements are wrong, nothing you can say after can be right...
Jesus didn't give us the 'Church'...Jesus gave us the church, as in churches...The first church was in Jerusalem...A Jewish church...The leader was James...A Jew...There were no Gentiles...No Catholics...
I respectfully disagree...
We are co-heirs with Christ and the same Spirit that raised him from the dead lives in all of us that have placed our faith in the salvation made available to all men by Jesus Christ.
To say that authority rests in the “church”, well, if by that you mean a collection of believers that are in fellowship with each other, we are getting closer. God’s authority on earth rests upon each individual believer that is remade by the saving ministry of Christ to become a full child of God.
Your analogy of the bird and eggs is not a good one, bro. Properly nurtured, eggs become birds that can make even more eggs. Once a bird lays enough eggs and they hatch, the bird really does not have any practical function anymore...
uh...no.
The Church, if you define that as roman catholic, did not give us the Scriptures.
The ekklesia, that is the body of believers, moved by the Holy Spirit who moved men to write, gave us the Word.
As I noted before, you really need to read The Canon of Scripture by F.F. Bruce.
Baloney.
Jesus gave us the Holy Spirit and vested ALL believers with His authority.
The *church* did NOT give us Scripture. The Holy Spirit did. NO church can claim to own Scripture by retroactively claiming they gave it to the world.
You've been duped.
By that logic you invalidate the church, since the church actually began in dissent from those who sat in the seat of Moses over Israel, (Mt. 23:2) who were the historical instruments and stewards of Scripture, "because that unto them were committed the oracles of God," (Rm. 3:2) to whom pertaineth" the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises" (Rm. 9:4) of Divine guidance, presence and perpetuation as they believed, (Gn. 12:2,3; 17:4,7,8; Ex. 19:5; Lv. 10:11; Dt. 4:31; 17:8-13; Ps, 11:4,9; Is. 41:10, Ps. 89:33,34; Jer. 7:23)
And instead they followed an itinerant Preacher whom the magisterium rejected, and whom the Messiah reproved by Scripture as being supreme, (Mk. 7:2-16) and established His Truth claims upon scriptural substantiation in word and in power, as did the early church as it began upon this basis. (Mt. 22:23-45; Lk. 24:27,44; Jn. 5:36,39; Acts 2:14-35; 4:33; 5:12; 15:6-21;17:2,11; 18:28; 28:23; Rm. 15:19; 2Cor. 12:12, etc.)
And which is certainly not opposed to magisterial authority, but the authority of the NT church was under men of supreme Scriptural integrity "not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. (2 Co. 4:2) "in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God..." (2 Co. 6:4)
Which is what is lacking today. Catholicism presumes too much of an office, and too little of Scripture, the only substantive body of Truth that is affirmed to be wholly inspired of God, and in which she is substantially absent and contrary to (while evangelicalism presumes too much of Scripture as far as practical authority is concerned, and too little of the magisterial office established thereby. The rest of Protestantism fails more. And both (and I) fail of the degree of holiness and faith the prima NT church exampled needed for the church of the living God to more fully manifest itself as being so, and as grounded in and supporting the Truth. Time for greater repentance.)
To reject the Church is akin to killing the bird that lays the eggs, saying that all you need are the eggs
Which killing is what is done under the stewardship-of-Scripture = ensured-infallibility logic, but the argument against Rome is not that of killing the church that gave us the NT, but that of excluding Rome from being the one true church, which is based upon her unScriptural premise of ensured perpetual magisterial infallibility, which is unseen and unnecessary in Scripture. Even being the historical instruments and stewards of Scripture does not require or mean that such possesses ensured perpetual magisterial infallibility.
But Rome has presumed to infallibly declare she is and will be perpetually infallible whenever she speaks in accordance with her infallibly defined (scope and subject-based) formula, which renders her declaration that she is infallible, to be infallible, as well as all else she accordingly declares.
According to Wikipedia, “Pope Damasus I assembled the first list of books of the Bible at the Council of Rome in 382 CE.”
Wikipedia is only as good as its references, and it also says "The Decretum Gelasianum [which is what you are referring to] which is a work written by an anonymous scholar between 519 and 553,"
and that a study by the Protestant scholar Ernst von Dobschütz concluded this decretal to be a forgery, perhaps from a scholar of the 6th century. Von Dobschütz cited the inclusion of a quote by Augustine, textual variations in a later Spanish version, and the decree's obscurity as decisive evidence that the document is the product of an anonymous 6th century author.
And as an aside, so-called "saint".Damasus was a murderer in seeker to secure his papal seat, for he "hired a gang of thugs that stormed the Julian Basilica, carrying out a three-day massacre of the Ursinians....of 137 was perpetrated in the basilica of Sicininus. " (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Damasus_I#Succession_crisis)
And in any case, contrary to RC propaganda, scholarly disagreements over the canonicity (proper) of certain books continued down through the centuries and right into Trent, until it provided the first "infallible," indisputable canon after the death of Luther.
And prior to the invention of the printing press centuries later, what were the flock to rely on? The Church and her Pope, Bishops and Priests. Outside of them there was not the Christian faith.
A false dilemma. Relative rarity of personal copies of Scripture and literacy simply does not mean that the words of leadership took the place of Scripture as necessarily being Truth and requiring implicit assent. For long before the printing press it is as is abundantly evidenced, that as progressively written, Scripture became the transcendent supreme standard for obedience and testing and establishing truth claims as the wholly Divinely inspired and assured, Word of God.
And in the light to which we see that both the pope of Rome and Catholic priests are not part of the NT church , nor is the distinction btwn presbuteros (senior/elder) or episkopos (superintendent/overseer )
And in spite of the printing press and now the radio, TV and internet, the full authority on earth rests in the Church, and not in the Bible alone.
Wrong again. The church does not have full authority on earth over those without, (1Cor. 5:12) while even the veracity of preaching of the apostles was subject to testing by Scripture by noble seekers. (Acts 17:11)
And Rome's so-called apostolic successors even fail of the qualifications and credentials of manifest Biblical apostles. (Acts 1:21,22; 1Cor. 9:1; Gal. 1:11,12; 2Cor. 6:1-0; 12:12)