it’s so easy to twist scripture, isn’t it?
Yes, and we’re warned in 2 Peter that the ignorant and unstable will do so. That’s why we have the Church, the pillar and foundation of the truth, to show us the
correct interpretation of the Bible.
twist is so it fits what you are taught to believe by the church.
The Church is the pillar and foundation of the truth; the only way to “untwist” the Bible is to reading it with the eyes of the Church.
as long as i dont have to keep to the bible alone.
Christianity never was and never has been a “Bible alone” religion.
what makes this discussion difficult is that catholics don’t regard the bible as the absolute truth that are to be followed before anything else.
Absolutely false! What makes this discussion difficult is your insistence that the Bible means what you want it to mean, regardless of whether history supports your doctrine, whether the first-century Christians held to your doctrine, or whether the Church supports your doctrine.
You’ve take the Bible out of context. The Bible was written
to the Church,
for the Church, by members of the Church. The Bible clearly indicates that the
Church is to be our guide, and yet you’ve ignored those passages and said that the Bible, and the Bible alone, is to be your guide. What about the apostles, the prophets, the pastors, teachers, and evangelists mentioned in Ephesians 4? These people are given far stronger support than the Scriptures that Timothy has been reading since childhood (i.e., the Old Testament) is given in 2 Timothy 3. In fact, Ephesians 4 says of the members of the Church everything
and more that 2 Timothy 3 says about Scripture. In fact, let me quote the full passage:
And his gifts were that some should be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ; so that we may no longer be children, tossed back and forth and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the cunning of men, by their craftiness in deceitful wiles.
Paul, when writing to Timothy, who was himself a pastor (a bishop, with the power to appoint other bishops, 1 Timothy 4), stated that Scripture makes a man “equipped for every good work,” note the connection: in Ephesians, Paul says that God gave us apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers “to equip the saints for the work of ministry.” It is those people who are to
use the Scriptures to equip the saints.
When Peter says in his second letter, “So also our beloved brother Paul wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, speaking of this as he does in all his letters. There are some things in them hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures,” he’s warning that there will be some people who will twist the Scriptures. And Paul addresses that as well in Ephesians 4: he says that apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers exist to “build up the body of Christ…so that we may no longer be children, tossed back and forth and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the cunning of men, by their craftiness in deceitful wiles.” Our guard against misinterpretation of Scripture and against false doctrine is
not to look at the Scriptures ourselves. We’re told in Proverbs, “Lean not on thine own understanding.” Our guard against misinterpretation and twisting of Scripture is to look to the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers that God gave us so that they can use the Scriptures (as Paul advised Timothy, a pastor and evangelist, to do) to teach us.
And so you see the fundamental problem is not that we Catholics “don’t regard the Bible as the absolute truth.” On the contrary, we’re the only ones who give it its fullest respect! An oft-quoted but rarely understood passage in Hebrews states that “the Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword.” Non-Catholics love to focus on the first part, but they often fail to understand the true import of the second part: the Word of God is like a
two-edged sword, a sword that if used in any way improperly can very easily cut the one who wields it. We Catholics love the Bible! We read more of it every mass than many Protestant churches read in a week, or even a month! But we recognize it for the sharp, two-edged sword it is, and will not lean only on our own understanding in order to interpret it; for that, we rely on the Church, the pillar and foundation of the Truth (in case you haven’t found it before now, that’s 1 Timothy 3:15).
To Be Continued…
{Jeopardy Song}