Ask A Baptist Pastor

[Murphs10]

“Holy Bible.” What makes it holy is God’s inspiration. I write Holy Bible on a blank notebook and that doesn’t make it from God. So I would tell them there are Christians who accept other books that aren’t God-breathed.

What if the person then asks you how you know which Scripture is God-breathed and where in Scripture does it tell which is and which is not? And, why those books were always in the Bible until the 1500s (1800s? actually when they stopped printing them in the Bible) when they were “removed.”

 

[jam070406]

So I’d have to see the entire system of Popes and Catholic leadership from one brief passage in Mt 16. I’d have to see Scripture pointing to an equal authority outside itself. I’d have to see praying to Saints from Scripture. I’d have to see baptizing infants in Scripture. I’d have to see real presence from Scripture. Etc.

You’d see all of this and more if you humble yourself, make yourself open to Truth and let the Holy Spirit guide you.

 

[Dancelittleewok]

Reformissionary,
I’d like your comments about my posts #126 and #128.

 

[tjm190]

Saints are not objects of worship, but rather we ask saints to pray for us. Unfortunately saints can not receive emails or phone calls and surprisingly few of them have Skype accounts. So, prayer would seem to be the most efficient means of contacting them.

 

[JRKH]

Good questions. 1. I would give them a Bible, not make them buy their own. 2. I don’t put much weight on different publishers with different goals using the name “Holy Bible.” What makes it holy is God’s inspiration. I write Holy Bible on a blank notebook and that doesn’t make it from God. So I would tell them there are Christians who accept other books that aren’t God-breathed.

It seems like a not-that-important problem, really. Not sure that scenario gets us very far in conversation. And you all would have the same problem if someone buys a Protestant Bible.

So you would expect me to simply continue to accept your word for it that the 66 book bible is the real and true bible and that the 73 book bible is NOT the real and true bible.

In other words, it is not The Bible that you expect me to believe in the face of this dilemma of the canon, It is YOU that you expect me to believe.

You say that you would tell me that, “there are Christians who accept other books that aren’t God-breathed”. So how would you go about proving that these other books are NOT God breathed?

Peace
James

 

[JRKH]

Good questions. 1. I would give them a Bible, not make them buy their own. 2. I don’t put much weight on different publishers with different goals using the name “Holy Bible.” What makes it holy is God’s inspiration. I write Holy Bible on a blank notebook and that doesn’t make it from God. So I would tell them there are Christians who accept other books that aren’t God-breathed.

It seems like a not-that-important problem, really. Not sure that scenario gets us very far in conversation. And you all would have the same problem if someone buys a Protestant Bible.

So you would expect me to simply continue to accept your word for it that the 66 book bible is the real and true bible and that the 73 book bible is NOT the real and true bible.

In other words, it is not The Bible that you expect me to believe in the face of this dilemma of the canon, It is YOU that you expect me to believe.

You say that you would tell me that, “there are Christians who accept other books that aren’t God-breathed”. So how would you go about proving that these other books are NOT God breathed, or for that matter that the ones in your 66 book bible are God breathed?

Peace
James

 

[estesbob]

By understanding the Bible for what it says, not what we want it to say. There will always be people who disagree and chose to let presuppositions and powers taint their understanding. It’s the Scriptures that we have been given to change people. We know that there were many false teachers all through Scripture. The Gospel, NOT the Catholic Church, is the power of God for salvation. Christians/Churches are the vessels of the Gospel.

You say the Bible says what is says. Well in John:6 Christ says we must eat his body and drink his blood. you say thats not what he means, i say the Bible says what is says. How do we resolve that?

Why should i or anyone else accpet you opinion on what the Bible says? You seem to be of the opinion that theology is left up to each person to figure out based on a book that was only availble to a small number of people for the first 1,400 years after Christ founded the Catholic Church. Given the thousands of different opinions on what the Bible says are we to beleive that God is the author of confusion?

 

[Dancelittleewok]

Saints are not objects of worship, but rather we ask saints to pray for us. Unfortunately saints can not receive emails or phone calls and surprisingly few of them have Skype accounts. So, prayer would seem to be the most efficient means of contacting them.

Not to mention, Heaven is timeless and space-less…

 

[reformissionary]

1 Timothy 3:15.

You could always quote it to make it easier on us all.

you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth.

Note, the church is the pillar and buttress. It supports, protects and promotes the truth. That has nothing to do with the church having an authority on par with Scripture.

 

[DCNBILL]

You could always quote it to make it easier on us all.

Note, the church is the pillar and buttress. It supports, protects and promotes the truth. That has nothing to do with the church having an authority on par with Scripture.

Please note that The Church is The Body of Christ with Christ as its head this is not an authority not only on par with, but above, the Scripture that came out of The Church to begin with.

 

[reformissionary]

RM,

Honest question:

Do you believe that if any person either now or at any point in history, Protestant or Catholic, no matter what level or education or experience does not share your exact interpretation of Scripture as you would express is in error?

If yes, how do you know that you are fundamentally correct and everyone else is not?
If no, how do you resolve any disagreements on Scripture?

Good question. Only if my interpretation is the correct one. I know by studying the Scripture, being open question my answers, etc. I don’t just read things I agree with, for example. Right now I’m reading more about RCism than things I believe. I’m working through things I’ve never had to as a Protestant. That’s good for me, and helps me to see what the Scriptures teach rather than taking it for granted. I encourage you as Catholics to do the same.

 

[jam070406]

You could always quote it to make it easier on us all.

Note, the church is the pillar and buttress. It supports, protects and promotes the truth. That has nothing to do with the church having an authority on par with Scripture.

Yes, the Church. Not the Bible, as you’d have us believe. So if you want the Truth you go to the Church, established by Jesus to safeguard the Truth and pass it on from generation to generation. Which also uses the Bible as a beneficial teaching aid. How did the early Christians learn the Truth in the first few centuries before there even was a NT canon established? Were they less of a Christian then you because they had no Bible to read? Did they say, I don’t believe you, show me where that is in the Bible? Oops!

 

[estesbob]

Good question. Only if my interpretation is the correct one. I know by studying the Scripture, being open question my answers, etc. I don’t just read things I agree with, for example. Right now I’m reading more about RCism than things I believe. I’m working through things I’ve never had to as a Protestant. That’s good for me, and helps me to see what the Scriptures teach rather than taking it for granted. I encourage you as Catholics to do the same.

We have-thats why we are Catholic.

 

[JRKH]

You could always quote it to make it easier on us all.

Note, the church is the pillar and buttress. It supports, protects and promotes the truth. That has nothing to do with the church having an authority on par with Scripture.

Let us lookat what St Paul has to say about Scripture:

*16 All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. *

Paul says it is profitable - He does NOT say that it is, by itself sufficient for obviously "teaching is still necessary.

Lets also look at what Christ says in Mt 18

*15 "If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother. 16 "But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every fact may be confirmed. 17 "If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church (Singular); and if he refuses to listen even to the church let him be as a tax collector. 18 "Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven. *

note that he doe NOT send the offender to “Scripture” but to “Church” and whatever “Church” decides is what is to be followed.

Peace
James

 

[jmcrae]

It wasn’t until 1545 at the Council of Trent that the Roman Catholic Church declared for the first time its official position that tradition was to now be equal in authority with God’s Word - the Bible.

In which Session did this take place, and what’s the paragraph number?

Once that was done the church had the freedom to add more and more traditions including much of what is now believed about Mary.

No one has ever “added” any “tradition” to the faith of the Church. Everything proclaimed infallibly by the Pope was already known to be obviously true, by the faithful on the ground. The Pope does not proclaim new information that nobody ever realized before - he simply puts the known information into a format that can be clearly understood and taught. They also do this very rarely, and only after some question about the traditional teaching has arisen - which is why it is remarkable that it took until 1850 for a Pope to define the immaculate conception of Mary - because what that means is that, for 1840~ years, no one had ever questioned that teaching.

The Bible is God’s Word, if it can’t stand on its own then it really doesn’t have God’s power and authority. Everything else must come under that, not along side of that, and certainly not above that.

The Bible is one of many products of the Holy Tradition - it is the Holy Tradition that gives us God’s Word, including the Bible, and including the Creeds, and including many other teaching methods.

 

[Betterave]

You could always quote it to make it easier on us all.

Note, the church is the pillar and buttress. It supports, protects and promotes the truth. That has nothing to do with the church having an authority on par with Scripture.

It’s all very well to study the Bible but you need to bring some common sense to the table when you do so. Every proponent of the sola scriptura dogma I have ever talked to (whether Christian, JW, or Muslim) has lacked the common sense to see that a book is a book, an inanimate object that cannot possibly be an authority in the proper sense of the word. An authority is necessarily a person. Of course they can often see this when it’s pointed out (it’s pretty obvious), but it would be strange indeed if the Spirit of Truth were responsible for guiding anyone to such an obviously false doctrine.

 

[jmcrae]

Before this time the Church did not have to declare it because all knew that the Church Compiled the Bible through the guidance of the Holy Spirit. If you think the bible is infallible then the Authoritative Church that declared it inspired must also be. The Bible support Catholic Traditions because the Church used Catholic Tradition to help with the compiling of the bible so they must and do support each other.

Well said!

 

[reformissionary]

Let us lookat what St Paul has to say about Scripture:

16 All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

Paul says it is profitable - He does NOT say that it is, by itself sufficient for obviously "teaching is still necessary.

Profitable doesn’t mean sufficient or insufficient. It means profitable. Useful. It’s not a word intended to point one way or another. “God-breathed” on the other hand, is crucial. Whatever isn’t God-breathed is inferior and fallible. You would agree, no?

Lets also look at what Christ says in Mt 18

*15 "If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother. 16 "But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every fact may be confirmed. 17 "If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church (Singular); and if he refuses to listen even to the church let him be as a tax collector. 18 "Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven. *

note that he doe NOT send the offender to “Scripture” but to “Church” and whatever “Church” decides is what is to be followed.

Peace
James

James, the church isn’t being as authoritative as Scripture here. It’s supporting it! It’s defending it! It’s using it (as it describes what the “sin” is) and then protecting the church by wielding the Word!

 

[jam070406]

It’s all very well to study the Bible but you need to bring some common sense to the table when you do so. Every proponent of the sola scriptura dogma I have ever talked to (whether Christian, JW, or Muslim) has lacked the common sense to see that a book is a book, an inanimate object that cannot possibly be an authority in the proper sense of the word. An authority is necessarily a person. Of course they can often see this when it’s pointed out (it’s pretty obvious), but it would be strange indeed if the Spirit of Truth were responsible for guiding anyone to such an obviously false doctrine.

Yes, God’s Word is Jesus, the second person of the Trinity.

 

[ConvertHereYay]

Ha. You can’t point to someone living during the writing of the Scriptures as unable to point to their own writings. The Apostles were there so that we would have the NT Scriptures!

No.

What about it? Are they a true church? Yea. He didn’t attend a Southern Baptist seminary associated with my particular denomination. But what difference does that make? Why bring up a random church?

Because it’s biblical. They have a mistaken aspect of covenantal theology that creates this error. It’s a hang up that I think would not be there if the Catholic church hadn’t changed the biblical mode of baptism long ago. But we stand united on the gospel and neither of us mean baptism in the magical, removal of original sin way that Catholics do. So they are good friends. Some of my favorite Christian writers and friends are baby baptizers. United on the Gospel.

So then you admit that your tradition ( Southern Baptist) and you are fallible interpreters of Sacred Scripture? Jesus prayed to the Father “let them be one as you and I are one”. The Father does not say to the Son “lets baptize babies” while the Son says to the Father “no wait until they are eight years old”.

I cannot comprehend how you believe that the Bible is God’s Word and believe there is no infallible interpreter of thereof.

You say that Baptists and Presbyterians are"United in the Gospel". Would you be happier if a Catholic became Baptist or Presbyterian? You don’t even claim your denomination is the One True Church yet preach your doctrines in your church? How can you justify all of this?