Given the choice, from which source would you prefere to learn the faith - the Scriptures, or a living apostle?

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Bear in mind, the living apostle, who teaches with the full authority of Christ, trumps all private interpretation of Scripture!
 
There is no Living Apostle! What are you talking about?
 
raumzeitmc2 said:
Hypothetical question. But just pretend you’re living in the first century when there *were *living apostles.

Why?
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As a Friend I don’t believe God needs a “middleman” to speak to me and guide me…I can go directly to Him for “immediate experience” of the Divine.
 
raumzeitmc2 said:
Hypothetical question. But just pretend you’re living in the first century when there *were *living apostles.

Why?
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In the first century the canon of the NT was not yet set. There was no NT, just the various letters and writings circulating throughout the Church. So the living Apostles were doing the teaching about Christ.
 
Publisher said:
Neither choice is acceptable.
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If learning from an apostle – who was hand picked by Jesus to pass on the good news – is an unacceptable way to learn the faith, then Jesus wasted His time while on earth, and His passion and death mean nothing. He even sent them out to speak to the people while He was with them. The apostles were His means of spreading the Good News after His ascension into heaven.
 
Publisher said:
As a Friend I don’t believe God needs a “middleman” to speak to me and guide me…I can go directly to Him for “immediate experience” of the Divine.
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Well, did you first go directly to God to receive this belief that you can go directly to God, or did you receive this teaching from those of your faith?
CB_Catholic said:
In the first century the canon of the NT was not yet set. There was no NT, just the various letters and writings circulating throughout the Church. So the living Apostles were doing the teaching about Christ.
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But assuming * a choice between the completed canon of the NT or a living* apostle, which would you choose?
 
raumzeitmc2 said:
Bear in mind, the living apostle, who teaches with the full authority of Christ, trumps all private interpretation of Scripture!
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Given the fact that time travel has not been invented yet, I would choose Scripture with the help of the Holy Spirit.
In the case that we had time travel I would skip the apostles and go and see Jesus in person.
 
raumzeitmc2 said:
Well, did you first go directly to God to receive this belief that you can go directly to God, or did you receive this teaching from those of your faith?

I was taught I needed scripture and church to know God…but from scriputure I found that God is a Present Comforter available to all of us…when I heard about the “Light Within” and the availablility of God directly without human priest or minister…I became “convinced a Friend”.

But assuming * a choice between the completed canon of the NT or a living* apostle, which would you choose?
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One must assume that the apostles were ‘infallible’ and did not make mistakes in their teaching/preaching about Jesus Christ.

There is an unhappy phrase, ‘lost in translation’; one wonders how often this has happened to the true message esp. in our modern gender-friendly translations

As far as we know Jesus wrote nothing down and didn’t feel the need for codification. He trusted his messengers; so why shouldn’t we? There really is nothing complex in the story.
This Man claiming to be the Son of God rose from the dead and asked that we love God and our neighbor. Why do we need volumes to understand/accept that?
 
Waiting said:
If learning from an apostle – who was hand picked by Jesus to pass on the good news – is an unacceptable way to learn the faith, then Jesus wasted His time while on earth, and His passion and death mean nothing. He even sent them out to speak to the people while He was with them. The apostles were His means of spreading the Good News after His ascension into heaven.
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This implies that the salvific work of Christ finds meaning only in the authority he delivered to the Apostles he chose. In my view, this line of thinking itself renders his sacrifice unnecessary; as his death and resurrection were not needed to offer such authority to men. Indeed, God had revealed himself to men for millennia without the need for incarnation and self-sacrifice.

If we say that both the sacrifice and the authority to teach it were needed, then we can say the sacrifice was merely a sign of authority, and a way to show that such authority had divine origin. If apostolic authority is not needed, but sacrifice is, then we can infer that the sacrifice had a spiritual significance which is accessible to men regardless of mediation.
 
Noesis said:
This implies that the salvific work of Christ finds meaning only in the authority he delivered to the Apostles he chose. In my view, this line of thinking itself renders his sacrifice unnecessary; as his death and resurrection were not needed to offer such authority to men. Indeed, God had revealed himself to men for millennia without the need for incarnation and self-sacrifice.

If we say that both the sacrifice and the authority to teach it were needed, then we can say the sacrifice was merely a sign of authority, and a way to show that such authority had divine origin. If apostolic authority is not needed, but sacrifice is**, then we can infer that the sacrifice had a spiritual significance which is accessible to men regardless of mediation**.
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That is the position of Friends.
 
Publisher said:
That is the position of Friends.
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This perception is also not uncommon in antiquity, and I think much of early Christianity was imbued with this view of Christ’s work. It is only authority which can stamp out such views, and I think authority is the main question of this thread. Christ is almost a secondary thought to the authority of men which became the main source of the evidence for who he was, and what his purposes were. Whether or not such authority is worthy of faith and confidence, is ultimately a matter of individual reason; but yet reason is stifled where there is authority who teaches in a near omniscient way.

Many are the paradoxes of Christianity.
 
raumzeitmc2 said:
Well, did you first go directly to God to receive this belief that you can go directly to God, or did you receive this teaching from those of your faith?

But assuming * a choice between the completed canon of the NT or a living* apostle, which would you choose?
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In that case, which is really an historical impossibility, I would rather hear it from a living Apostle, because they were THERE, and their eyewitness is the source of the NT (although the Source of all of this is, of course, God.)
 
Noesis said:
…I think authority is the main question of this thread…
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Indeed! And were not the 1st century Christians (who lived in the true “Bible church”) under the authority of the apostles?
 
Wow, this isn’t even a contest to me

Scripture contains teachings from all the apostles and prophets, so I have maybe a combined 1,000 years of teaching time at my beck and call 24/7.

It’s gonna be hard to get much 1 on 1 teaching time from any Apostle, whether you are a Mormon or a Protestant who figured out time travel,
 
raumzeitmc2 said:
Bear in mind, the living apostle, who teaches with the full authority of Christ, trumps all private interpretation of Scripture!
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I would say, raum, that in some ways those early Christians had an advantage over us, hearing the words of Sts. Peter and Paul, John and the others.

I also think that I would have preferred the time of the early councils.

Jon
 
raumzeitmc2 said:
Indeed! And were not the 1st century Christians (who lived in the true “Bible church”) under the authority of the apostles?
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Let us assume the answer is affirmative.

As far as I am aware, there is no record of the teachings of specific apostles which were written and published by them; and thus what such authority actually implied and what it consisted of remains in the shadows of history.

Apostolic authority, in my view, is a first seen as a construct of later generations to explain why their own views should be taken most seriously. This sort of question arose in the first place due to opinions on Christ which existed in often contradictory states with regard to each other.

Contradictions were ‘removed’ by claiming that they were against the teachings of the apostles, the second authority, and that they were therefore incorrect. But whether or not they actually contradicted the authority of the apostles cannot be seen; we must, instead, accept yet another authority: the authority that a particular teaching is based on the authority of those closest to Christ.

By the way, please forgive the thousands of times I’ve used the word ‘authority’ in my posts here. :o
 
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