If, and only if...

[Scoobyshme]

Lets see, the NT is the life experiences of individuals, its about individual personalities, its about life experiences isn’t it?
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are individuals. They wrote about their presonal life experiences with Jesus. Each one saw thing a little different then the other. Each one experienced something different then the other. They used their personal life experiences, and wrote their interpretations of what they experienced during their life with Jesus. Sure there are things that are the same but also there are things that are different.

Much like us today, we agree on somethings and we disagree on somethings. Each of us can use our individual life experiences and compare them to what is written in the Bible. What is wrong with using ones life experiences? Didn’t Jesus use others life experiences to get his message across? Didn’t he use his own life experiences to get his message across? See we, meaning people, are so self-centered that we go around with blinders on. People believe that there is only one way to worship, one way to spread his word, that we don’t see the good the other denominations do. We don’t see that they are bring people closer to God. We are so cought up in, this is the only way because its been like that for 2000 years, that we loose what Jesus meant. He gave each of us a life experience to share, to help preach his word. I was homeless and poor so you are saying I can’t use that life experience to preach about the helping the homeless and helping the poor?

Out of hundreds of disciples, Jesus chose 12 to be his close friends. Thats not to say the rest of the hundreds didn’t stay around. They were preached to by Jesus and I’m sure they saw things and understood things differently and talked about what they learned in their own understanding. We were not created to be like mindless robots that can’t think and understand things for ourselves. He gave each of us a mind to think and understand things differently.

Well, Rev, understanding things differently is not the same as holding contradictory doctrines, is it? Or is it?

Let’s see. (Please correct me if I’m wrong about this.) Baptists do not believe in infant Baptism. Yet, Lutherans and Anglicans do. Yet, both read the same Bible and both claim to be led by the Holy Spirit in the interpretation of that same Bible. Both cannot be correct, because these are two contradictory doctrines. And I’m sure we could come up with thousands more similar comparisons, all based on individual interpretation of Scripture. The Holy Spirit is not the author of confusion, but of Truth.

But the synthesis of the Gospels is not some personal viewpoint or abstract notion. The synthesis of the Gospels is Jesus Christ, Himself. It is a Divine Person who is Truth personified. A united Divine Truth. And the same is true for all of the Bible. It is a whole of Truth. Properly interpreted, there are no contradictions in Scripture. One should always read the Old Testament in light of the New Testament, and the New Testament as a fulfillment of the Old Testament.

The word of God has been given to mankind, not just in the Bible, but in Holy Tradition (a.k.a., Oral Tradition as St. Paul refers to in 2 Thes 2:15), too. In fact, the Bible itself says that not all that Jesus did or taught is IN the Bible (John 21:25). Yet, in Matt. 28:20, Jesus commanded the Apostles to go forth and teach ALL that He had taught them. As far as we can tell, He never commanded anyone to write anything. He commanded them to preach ALL of His teachings. And this is how the Apostles spread His teachings in the beginning. Orally. Only SOME of what they taught was written down in the New Testament.

Consider this… For the first 18 centuries or so, the vast majority of the earth’s population were illiterate. They could neither read nor write. What sense, then, would it make for Jesus to create a Bible-reading, self-interpreting Church to spread His truths? None. That would have precluded the vast majority of the earth’s population from hearing His truth! The Apostles went about preaching His message. The Bible says faith comes from “hearing” the Word of God, not reading the Word of God.

And, because we humans are born with Original sin, we have the effects of it, even after Original sin is washed off our souls in Baptism. Those affects are darkness of intellect and weakness of will. That’s why we need an authoritative interpreter of God’s Word, not every individual! Left to every individual, filtering it through their personal experiences, education, bias’ and prejudices, you end up with exactly what Protestantism is, one big splintered mess, with thousands of man-made, contradictory beliefs! The Bible, however, in 1 Tim 3:15, says that it is the Church which is the “pillar and foundation of truth.” But, which Church, you say? Historically, there was only one Christian Church for the first 1000 years of Christianity, the Catholic Church. Then, the Orthodox split off, but retained Apostolic Succession. (That’s why they still have 7 Sacraments.) Protestantism, however, didn’t begin till 1517 A.D., and has splintered into litereally thousands of denominations since (and counting). My question to all of them is this: WHO gave anyone permission to found a Church apart from the one founded by Jesus Christ, Son of God?

Jesus said He wanted there to be one flock, one faith, not thousands.