Yes. That is how we have apostolic teaching available to us today. The Holy Spirit inspired the truth to be written. The Holy Spirit preserved it as written. All who read it are being taugh by the apostles.
Their “successors” are not apostles of Christ as they never knew him in person but are apostles of the apostles and so forth. The truth is measured by the Holy Scriptures because listening to the apostles/prophets of God is how we know truth from error.
1 John 4:6 ESV
6 We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
So all who teach the gospel as recorded by the Holy Spirit are successors of the apostles. The gospel is the whole point and is the truth that the church holds up.
Hello DD2007; thanks for your response; So you believe “All who read it are being taught by the apostles” So anyone can read scripture and teach it? because by reading the bible themselves makes them taught by the apostles?
What happened to all those since the first century never learned how to read? did these go to hell because they could not read the bible inspired by the Holy Spirit, and could not be taught by the apostles because they never learned to read? Or am I to assume that you are an apostle because you can read the bible and others who cannot read are not an apostle?
My Catholic faith teaches me that faith come from hearing and hearing the Word of God. So do we remove this verse from the bible becaue it conflicts with your theology of Sola Scriptura? You see the confusion Sola Scriptura brings to christianity? which is it? hearing? or reading?. Because to hold to a Sola Scriptura leaves the hearing impaired and the illiterate out of your Sola Scriptura equation?
Unless you need a teacher, but then your Sola Scriptura theology is no longer Sola Scriptura because you just added a teacher? Then how do we know if the teacher of the (not the sola scriptura no more because you just added a teacher) the bible like your self is teaching true apostolic “Truth”. If the teacher like yourself was never taught or saw a living a apostle?
The Catholic Bishops are successors to the apostles because their teachers were taught by the apostles themselves, who handed down the teachings and Traditions of apostles of which the Catholic church still teaches unchanged today. If you leave out Sared Oral Tradition of the apostles and hold to only Sola Scriptura then you do not have the full deposit of faith; I will leave you with these scriptures;
2Thessalonians 2:13 But we ought to give thanks to God for you always, brothers loved by the Lord, because God chose you as the firstfruits 7 for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in truth. 14 To this end he has (also) called you through our gospel to possess the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. 15 Therefore, brothers, stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught, either by an oral statement or by a letter of ours. 16 May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who has loved us and given us everlasting encouragement and good hope through his grace, 17 encourage your hearts and strengthen them in every good deed and word.
2Thess.3:5 May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the endurance of Christ. 6 We instruct you, brothers, in the name of (our) Lord Jesus Christ,to shun any brother who conducts himself in a disorderly way and not according to the tradition they received from us.
1Timothy 3:14 I am writing you about these matters, although I hope to visit you soon.
15 But if I should be delayed, you should know how to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of truth. 16 Undeniably great is the mystery of devotion, Who 7 was manifested in the flesh, vindicated in the spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed to the Gentiles, believed in throughout the world, taken up in glory.
1Corinthians11:1 Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ. 2 I praise you because you remember me in everything and hold fast to the traditions, just as I handed them on to you. 3 But I want you to know that Christ is the head of every man, and a husband the head of his wife, and God the head of Christ.
1Peter 1:23 You have been born anew, not from perishable but from imperishable seed, through the living and abiding word of God, 11 24 for: “All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flower of the field; the grass withers, and the flower wilts; 25 but the word of the Lord remains forever.” This is the word that has been proclaimed to you.
2Peter 3: 15 And consider the patience of our Lord as salvation, as our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, also wrote to you, 16 speaking of these things 12 as he does in all his letters. In them there are some things hard to understand that the ignorant and unstable distort to their own destruction, just as they do the other scriptures. 17 Therefore, beloved, since you are forewarned, be on your guard not to be led into the error of the unprincipled and to fall from your own stability. 18 But grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory now and to the day of eternity. (Amen.)