Sola Scriptura and the Council of Jerusalem

[jimmy]

I was thinking about sola scriptura and I was trying to think of a good way to prove it wrong and I thought of the council of Jerusalem in Acts 15. In the council of Jerusalem Paul went to the apostles to ask whether the gentiles needed to be circumcised in order to become Christians. The apostles came to the conclusion that they did not need to be circumcised. They did not do this using any scriptures. They assembled to consider the matter and then Peter spoke and said it was not necisary for conversion.

There must be some kind of infallable decision maker in this.

Someone might say, “this is in the bible though.” If you say this you are missing the point. The point is that in the bible scripture is not always used to decide the beliefs.

I would like to here peoples thoughts on this.

 

[Joe_Kelley]

Note that in Matthew 18:15-17

11 "If your brother 12 sins (against you), go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won over your brother.

16

13 If he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, so that ‘every fact may be established on the testimony of two or three witnesses.’

17

If he refuses to listen to them, tell the church. 14 If he refuses to listen even to the church, then treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector.

Jesus says take your disputes to the Church. He doesn’t say anything about slinging Scripture verses at each other. They are obviously following His teaching here.

 

[Shibboleth]

Lutherans have councils also to try and decipher what is or was meant by the words of Christ. We have a Catechism….

Do Gentiles or others need be circumcised? No of course not.

Christ fulfilled the laws of the profits, so we need not circumcise ourselves any longer. I am sure that they got together and went, “Well… why would they need to circumcise themselves, we do not. Jesus fulfilled the laws for all of us, why would the Gentiles be held up to something that we are not.”

This is all in the scriptures; any council could have deciphered it from the teachings of Jesus.

 

[Pedro]

Shibboleth:

Christ fulfilled the laws of the profits, so we need not circumcise ourselves any longer. I am sure that they got together and went, “Well… why would they need to circumcise themselves, we do not. Jesus fulfilled the laws for all of us, why would the Gentiles be held up to something that we are not.”

This is all in the scriptures; any council could have deciphered it from the teachings of Jesus.

Jesus did fulfill the OT, but he also said that not one letter of the law would pass. God had commanded that circumcision be performed as a sign of the covenant people of God. Before the Gospel was preached to the gentiles, all Christians, including the apostles, were Jews and were all circumcised. It would would make more sense for them to be thinking “We all needed to be circumcised to enter God’s covenant, why would the gentiles be exempt from this?” It also wasn’t clear what to do based on Jesus’ teaching since Jesus never mentions circumcision and Jesus himself was circumcised.

The apostles didn’t practice sola scriptura or else they would have decided that the gentiles should have been circumcised since that is what was written in scripture. Remember, “scripture” at the time of Acts was the Septuagint. Instead they met and with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, decided that circumcision was no longer required, and that baptism was now the sign of the new covenant.

 

[Shibboleth]

Pedro:

Jesus did fulfill the OT, but he also said that not one letter of the law would pass. God had commanded that circumcision be performed as a sign of the covenant people of God. Before the Gospel was preached to the gentiles, all Christians, including the apostles, were Jews and were all circumcised. It would would make more sense for them to be thinking “We all needed to be circumcised to enter God’s covenant, why would the gentiles be exempt from this?” It also wasn’t clear what to do based on Jesus’ teaching since Jesus never mentions circumcision and Jesus himself was circumcised.

The apostles didn’t practice sola scriptura or else they would have decided that the gentiles should have been circumcised since that is what was written in scripture. Remember, “scripture” at the time of Acts was the Septuagint. Instead they met and with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, decided that circumcision was no longer required, and that baptism was now the sign of the new covenant.

Col 2:11-12
In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ:

Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with [him] through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.

This decicion did not happen in a council.

 

[Pedro]

Shibboleth:

Col 2:11-12
In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ:

Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with [him] through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.

This decicion did not happen in a council.

It was Paul who brought this issue of circumcision to the Jerusalem council. In Colossians he is simply communicating the council’s decision to the audience of his letter.

 

[GAssisi]

Dear Shibboleth,

You are partly correct. The DOGMATIC basis of the conciliar decision was indeed not decided at the Council. It was ALREADY established by God through the first Pope St. Peter in Acts 10, a dogmatic point he repeated at the Council of Jerusalem (vss. 7-12). Note that the debate ended when Peter spoke (vs. 12-13).

I think part of the point Pedro is making is that Paul did not appeal to Scripture in order to settle the case, but to a Council.

God bless,
Greg

 

[Pedro]

GAssisi:

I think part of the point Pedro is making is that Paul did not appeal to Scripture in order to settle the case, but to a Council.

Exacto mundo!

Despite the circumcision requirement being clearly written in scripture, and despite Jesus saying the law would not pass away, they decided it wasn’t needed anymore. Going back to the original topic of this thread, this contradicts sola scriptura - the idea that scripture is the sole basis of our Christian faith.

 

[Shibboleth]

This is kind of a moot argument in the fact that Lutherans believe that Peter and Paul as apostles have a little different level of authority than say Pope John Paul – but anyways I am trying to go about this from a different direction to show that these proclamations were simply clarified at the Council and not made binding at that point.

The Mosaic Laws and circumcision were superceded by the new Covenant of Jesus Christ. This new Covenant did not come about at the Council or meeting or a bunch of people talking about it.

As stated before Lutherans also have meetings and proclamations on what we believe as a group based on Scripture and the like. At times instead of stating the direct source of scripture in which the conclusions were based we will direct someone to - lets say Augsburg Confession in which arguments were resolved as to the intent of something.

We likewise note that the Augsburg Confession is fallible and could be wrong…. Once again Peter and Paul had a level of authority above anyone at the Augsburg Confession.

 

[Paul_W]

jimmy:

Someone might say, “this is in the bible though.” If you say this you are missing the point. The point is that in the bible scripture is not always used to decide the beliefs.

You’re right, it’s in the bible now, but it wasn’t then. Sola Scripture couldn’t have been used by the apostles, because they were still writing it. For decades, until the various scriptures were assembled, the only definitive source was “the Church.”

And when they finally assembled the various books and letters, who decided which ones to include or exclude? The Catholic church.

 

[E.E.N.S]

The context of 2 Timothy 1-3 referred several times to Paul’s oral teaching. Did Paul consider his oral teaching to be merely his own ideas? No; according to 1 Thessalonians 2:13 he considered them the very words of God:

“and also we thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is at work in you who believe.”

Here we see that Paul’s oral teaching was inspired by God, just as were his written words. If these words were inspired by God, then they were infallible. If the inspired oral preaching was infallible, Timothy had another infallible source from which to draw to help make him a fit man of God prepared for every good work. Therefore, by the principle of infallibility, Paul cannot be teaching the concept of sola scriptura in 2 Timothy 3:16-17.

 

[Shibboleth]

E.E.N.S.:

The context of 2 Timothy 1-3 referred several times to Paul’s oral teaching. Did Paul consider his oral teaching to be merely his own ideas? No; according to 1 Thessalonians 2:13 he considered them the very words of God:

“and also we thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is at work in you who believe.”

Here we see that Paul’s oral teaching was inspired by God, just as were his written words. If these words were inspired by God, then they were infallible. If the inspired oral preaching was infallible, Timothy had another infallible source from which to draw to help make him a fit man of God prepared for every good work. Therefore, by the principle of infallibility, Paul cannot be teaching the concept of sola scriptura in 2 Timothy 3:16-17.

Lutherans do not disagree with this. We simply state that the Scriptures are sufficient and that we cannot produce anything that supersedes, contradicts, or is at par with Scripture.

Jesus also said and did many things that were not written. All of these things were of course infallible. Lutherans do not have a problem with this because we believe those things that are absolutely necessary for understanding were preserved in the scriptures.

If an angel came to me as they do to humans from time to time, I would consider what that angel proclaimed as infallible just as I would consider anything Christ said in his second coming infallible.

Once again Paul and Peter had powers above those of this earth at this time. ← in reference to Lutheran theology. So of course he had the ability to bind things to this earth that we do not.

 

[Catholic4aReasn]

Shibboleth:

Lutherans have councils also to try and decipher what is or was meant by the words of Christ. We have a Catechism….

Do Gentiles or others need be circumcised? No of course not.

Christ fulfilled the laws of the profits, so we need not circumcise ourselves any longer. I am sure that they got together and went, “Well… why would they need to circumcise themselves, we do not. Jesus fulfilled the laws for all of us, why would the Gentiles be held up to something that we are not.”

This is all in the scriptures; any council could have deciphered it from the teachings of Jesus.

But the Council of Jerusalem didn’t have the teachings of Jesus in the scriptures. They did not rely on scripture alone, in fact they did not rely on the scriptures at all, but rather on their own authority under the guidance of the holy spirit (Acts 15:28).

In Christ,
Nancy

 

[Catholic4aReasn]

Shibboleth:

Lutherans do not disagree with this. We simply state that the Scriptures are sufficient and that we cannot produce anything that supersedes, contradicts, or is at par with Scripture.

This idea is not, itself, in Scripture. It would seem, then, that we CAN produce something that is on par with the Scriptures, namely a teaching that says that we cannot produce anything that is on par with Scripture.

we believe those things that are absolutely necessary for understanding were preserved in the scriptures.

Absolutely necessary for understanding what?

Since this is not in scripture on what do the Lutherans base this belief?

Also, since this is not in scripture does this mean that this particular belief is not absolutely necessary for understanding?

In Christ,
Nancy

 

[Shibboleth]

Catholic4aReasn:

This idea is not, itself, in Scripture. It would seem, then, that we CAN produce something that is on par with the Scriptures, namely a teaching that says that we cannot produce anything that is on par with Scripture.

Absolutely necessary for understanding what?

Since this is not in scripture on what do the Lutherans base this belief?

Also, since this is not in scripture does this mean that this particular belief is not absolutely necessary for understanding?

In Christ,
Nancy

We are not Solo Scriptura

Anyways Salvation, Salvation, Salvation

 

[Shibboleth]

Catholic4aReasn:

But the Council of Jerusalem didn’t have the teachings of Jesus in the scriptures. They did not rely on scripture alone, in fact they did not rely on the scriptures at all, but rather on their own authority under the guidance of the holy spirit (Acts 15:28).

In Christ,
Nancy

Please read my subsequent posts on this…

 

[Catholic4aReasn]

Shibboleth:

We are not Solo Scriptura

Anyways Salvation, Salvation, Salvation

OK.

Please answer my questions now. Thanks!

In Christ,
Nancy

 

[Shibboleth]

Catholic4aReasn:

OK.

Please answer my questions now. Thanks!

In Christ,
Nancy

I will if you are curious about where Lutherans get their beliefs about certain things; however I am not interested in polemic. I am interested in the Catholic explanation about how they view certain verses, situations, and the like.

I am here to learn and to share my knowledge. We are going to see things differently, I will listen to what someone has to say about the strengths of their faith I will disregard anyone trying to attack mine.

So if you are interested I am glad to share. Let me know.

 

[Catholic4aReasn]

Shibboleth:

I will if you are curious about where Lutherans get their beliefs about certain things; however I am not interested in polemic. I am interested in the Catholic explanation about how they view certain verses, situations, and the like.

I am here to learn and to share my knowledge. We are going to see things differently, I will listen to what someone has to say about the strengths of their faith I will disregard anyone trying to attack mine.

So if you are interested I am glad to share. Let me know.

I never attack anyone here. I just ask a bunch of questions to understand where people are coming from. I’m sorry you thought that may have been my motive.

In Christ,
Nancy

 

[jimmy]

The point is that God commanded ALL to be circumcised. There is no where where Jesus says that is no longer required. Jesus came to fullfill the law and not to abolish it. Paul appealed to the authority of Peter and the apostles in order to come up with an answer. He did not appeal to scripture. The apostles did not use the scriptures either to make the decision.

Jesus may have taught that circumcision was not necisary but that is not in the scriptures.