Sola Scriptura -- what is the actual authority?

[goout]

Those of you who can’t stomach the charism of authority:
Why did Christ come into human flesh?
He left no durable community in his name? Are we just a collection of separated individualists?
Everything we see claimed in this thread… God could have done by just throwing the book down from the sky.
That kind of distant God defies the core reality of Christianity:
that Christ came, lived, and established a community, died, rose, and ascended, leaving The Body.

 

[Lenten_ashes]

It seems you are or have been, implying that the Catholic Church puts men at the center instead of the Word, which is unequivocally false.

And the only proven leaven of the pharisees was unbelief in Christ. And as stated, the Jews were blinded by God, so culpability is hard to ascertain.

 

[mcq72]

So your use of the passage only applies to the Catholic Church…not to Protestantism?
Ok, how do you justify your selective application this passage?

You lost me here…the beware is applied in my post to all churches…the abhorrence to violence is applied to all churches in my post…i thought I was clear enough that P’s have applied to themselves quite often as evidenced by many splits / denominations…they beware “leaven” in their church quite a bit…so not sure how you misread my posts

 

[goout]

goout:

So your use of the passage only applies to the Catholic Church…not to Protestantism?
Ok, how do you justify your selective application this passage?

You lost me here…the beware is applied in my post to all churches…the abhorrence to violence is applied to all churches in my post…i thought I was clear enough that P’s have applied to themselves quite often as evidenced by many splits / denominations…they beware “leaven” in their church quite a bit…so not sure how you misread my posts

yea, I am not sure what your point is then. Because you seemed to be applying it to the Catholic Church, by proxy of Jesus’ rebuking of the Pharisees’ traditions.

 

[TULIPed]

Interesting.

Pedigree is required for authority. Under the Catholic construct, is this the only requirement? If not, what else is required?

 

[mcq72]

you have the unavoidable fact that those he disputed with and lived among crucified him , and he went willingly. Your attempt to portray Christ as “conditionally obedient” fails any conception of Christian obedience.

Disagree…your refusal to see it or twist my words reminds me off folks who did certain unspeakable things whilst serving in the military and insist they were only following orders, turning off any conflicting moral compass.

You have not answered Peter’s “obedience” to his old Sanhedrin when told not to preach…the church was still quite Jewish at this time.

 

[goout]

goout:

you have the unavoidable fact that those he disputed with and lived among crucified him , and he went willingly. Your attempt to portray Christ as “conditionally obedient” fails any conception of Christian obedience.

Disagree…your refusal to see it or twist my words reminds me off folks who did certain unspeakable things whilst serving in the military and insist they were only following orders, turning off any conflicting moral compass.

You have not answered Peter’s “obedience” to his old Sanhedrin when told not to preach…the church was still quite Jewish at this time.

Legitimate authority.
You are discarding a basic tenet:
obedience is to legitimate authority. Which Christ gave to The Church. Which was the whole point of his incarnation: to establish community between God and people.

The fact that you equate Christian obedience to unthinking and immoral acts of war says a lot.

And you have a blessed day and rest of the week.

 

[TULIPed]

Legitimate authority.

Who is Legitimate Authority accountable to - not just eternally, but in the here and now?

 

[mcq72]

JW’s are another modern day invention – like Protestant Churches, lacking any sort of pedigree/unbroken chain back to the apostles.

And since they lack a legit pedigree, nobody should take their claims of authority seriously.

Sounds familiar…this conditional allegiance to one declaring God’s word…either we are very Catholic or you are very Protestant with such selectivity and " bewaring" of leaven in one’s teaching.

But disagree partly with succession…don’t see touching/laying hands on and anointing as foolproof assurance of God’s choice in the matter, and full apostolic conveyance. The Jews also had methods of priestly conveyance and they most certainly lost a few things " in translation", or better said, began passing leaven unawares.

So agree to some order of conveyance, yet being careful to not limit God on His annointing, to be aware of His calling on a life or on a “message” for the season.

Often God is not a respector of persons when it comes to placing understanding in the heart of a man.

Lastly apostolic is as apostolic does…a Forest Gumperism…that is having apostolic teaching, actions and heart is what really counts…and that ultimately comes from God’s graces…yet never totally apart from the " church", and sometimes in spite of the church.

 

[goout]

goout:

Legitimate authority.

Who is Legitimate Authority accountable to - not just eternally, but in the here and now?

Christ.
Who is Christ?
How would you know?
Before you say scripture, you run into the oft ignored problem that NT did not exist for decades after Christ’s ascension.

At least you acknowledge the legitimate authority exists, and I hope you can acknowledge that essentially, legitimate authority is personal, because God, in Christ, is personal, not a book.

 

[mcq72]

Those of you who can’t stomach the charism of authority:
Why did Christ come into human flesh?
He left no durable community in his name

Totally straw man…a failure for some reason to what others post…which is sad because of the otherwise strong rule of law, of the bible as normative in CC.

 

[mcq72]

It seems you are or have been, implying that the Catholic Church puts men at the center instead of the Word, which is unequivocally false.

Not sure i have gone that far…but someone did, saying leaven of Jewish leaders was self serving, and perhaps so, but probably more to it than just that. But I suppose one could apply that to NT leaven.

And as stated, the Jews were blinded by God, so culpability is hard to ascertain.

Perhaps so…culpability has not been discussed so much as just getting past the admission of any leaven by churches in themselves, irregardless as to how it got there so far in these discussions.

 

[TULIPed]

Christ

We agree! Christ is the ultimate Legitimate Authority. Thank God. Whether king, president, priest or pauper, our God rules.

As for human authority, when you join a Reformed church, you covenant (publicly) to submit to the authority of the church you join. The governing body of a Reformed church is comprised of Elders (and sometimes Deacons as well). There are usually Teaching Elders (clergy) and Ruling Elders (lay people who are ordained as Elders). Happy to go into more detail if you’d like.

Who is Christ?
How would you know?

I have many Catholic brothers and sisters who know Christ intimately. They’ve (I’m fairly certain) given me the benefit of the doubt that I know and love Him as well (I do). I’ll do the same for you, brother/sister.

 

[Lenten_ashes]

Just so my position is clear – there have been many great layperson ‘reformers’, so to speak, within the Church. There have also been many great protestant Christians like Billy Graham who have done much for the building up of the Kingdom. I’ll never deny that God can and does use anyone for His purposes and that heart matters. Of course heart matters as the Jews seemed to have hearts of stone in Jesus day and age.

What I’m saying is that Churches outside the Bark of Peter lack any legitimate authority and do not have the promises of infallibility on doctrinal matters. For evidence of this, look at the teaching on birth control. 100 years ago it was not permitted in any Church, now mostly all of them rubber stamp it. So either it was correct teaching 100 years ago and the protestant Churches changed it, or it was never correct teaching to begin with and they were wrong then and correct now. That is because they are not safeguarded from teaching error.

So yes, there are many Judas among us in the RCC. There is no doubt about it. But the Church has the pedigree with valid ordination. And it can make a legitimate claim of authority. The only others who could make such a claim are the Orthodox and to a lesser extent the Anglicans. JW’s and whoever else picks up a bible and decides they are an authority should be disregarded.

 

[goout]

goout:

Christ

We agree! Christ is the ultimate Legitimate Authority. Thank God. Whether king, president, priest or pauper, our God rules.

As for human authority, when you join a Reformed church, you covenant (publicly) to submit to the authority of the church you join. The governing body of a Reformed church is comprised of Elders (and sometimes Deacons as well). There are usually Teaching Elders (clergy) and Ruling Elders (lay people who are ordained as Elders). Happy to go into more detail if you’d like.

Who is Christ?
How would you know?

I have many Catholic brothers and sisters who know Christ intimately. They’ve (I’m fairly certain) given me the benefit of the doubt that I know and love Him as well (I do). I’ll do the same for you, brother/sister.

Yes, absolutely.
And we also have the discussion that is ongoing…

 

[TULIPed]

Ah - sorry - I think I misinterpreted your “how would you know” to be “how would YOU know.” The curse of the interweb…

 

[goout]

Speaking generally and more accurately, “how does anyone know?”
There is a seed, and there is the tree that grows from it.

Is the fruit one with the seed? This is not as easy to answer as it sounds. We who are fruits tend to credit our fruitiness to our own selves without accepting our common dna with the seed and the whole of the organism.
We as fruit are nothing outside that organism.

In this essential sense…how does the fruit “know” the seed?

 

[TULIPed]

It’s a good and fair question. We would say that, to keep with your analogy (and it’s a good Biblical one, so bravo), we know people know Christ by the fruit borne in their lives. Generally speaking - in the Reformed church, we apply the following scripture (among others) from Titus as a guideline when choosing Elders:

“…so that you might put what remained into order, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you— 6 if anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife, and his children are believers and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination. 7 For an overseer, as God’s steward, must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain, 8 but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined. 9 He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it.”

 

[Hodos]

A.) How do you determine authoritatively for yourself what God’s Word truly says when there is conflict?

B.) How can you confirm that your adherence to Gods Word is correct rather than a Pastor or fellow Christian.

C.) How do you know that your position concerning what God truly says in His Word is in union with His Church?

It is written on paper. I am not just coming up with stuff out of thin air. We can examine the text (grammar, syntax, genre of literature, etc.) and the historical context, just like your ecclesial body has traditionally done by the way. We literally have thousands of documents throughout history with this exact thing being done.

I find it somewhat disingenuous that the very thing you do everyday and accept as normal within your own ecclesial body, is somehow forbidden to others. It’s like, “What is this black magic that you call ‘reading comprehension’ that you speak of?”

 

[goout]

Right and also Mt 7 “you will know them by their fruits”.

The point of disputation always goes back to authority.
Is enduring authority a charism?
Is a charism a gift from God that is part of the divine human relationship?

It seems to me that a rejection of authority as part of the full human condition is a relatively modern invention. It is part and parcel of individualism.
Authority and obedience have become so badly distorted by
the abuse of it
and the prideful chafing at it.

and i have to get work done have a good day.