SPLIT: What did Christ teach that wasn't written,and if it wasn't written how can you be sure He taught it?

[JLongoria]

If they didn’t know what the OT Scriptures were then what is Jesus referring to in Matthew 21:42 when He says:
Jesus *said to them, “Did you never read in the Scriptures,‘The stone which the builders rejected,This became the chief corner stone;This came about from the Lord,And it is marvelous in our eyes’?

The Scriptures Jesus is referring to is the OT. Correct?

Correct.

Yet Jesus Himself didn’t go ahead and point out which Old Testament books counted as inspired scripture, did He?

In fact, there are times when Jesus refers to stuff written outside the Old Testament writings that both Catholics and non-Catholic Christians accept.
Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples, saying, “The scribes and the Pharisees have taken their seat on the chair of Moses. Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you, but do not follow their example. For they preach but they do not practice.”

St. Matthew 23:1-3

Ruh roh, Raggy! Jesus appears to be quoting something outside the Sacred Scriptures here when He mentions the “seat of Moses”, and indeed, He most certainly is; but it goes without saying that any Jewish person who heard Him would know exactly what He’s talking about because the Jewish faith also involves Sacred Tradition.

Jesus did not point out which Old Testament scriptures were inspired or not; the Church, through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, did and we embraced them because they fully and faithfully represent the faith of the people of Israel, and foretell the coming of Christ.

Yet even Jesus refers to things outside the scriptures, which lends credibility to the idea that just because something is not in Scriptures does not mean that it is not truthful. Heck, even the Gentile pagans had truth in their philosophies (let us recall St. Paul’s visit to Athens).

St. Justin Marytr was so blessed because he realized that if there is any truth in any religion, it is ours because God has willed it that all should know Him. The pagans new of God through nature long before St. Paul came to them; yet he came to fulfill their knowledge of God!

 

[justasking4]

“The combination “the Catholic Church” (he katholike ekklesia) is found for the first time in the letter of St. Ignatius to the Smyrnaeans, written about the year 110.” -New Advent.org

“The true Church of Christ, as it is revealed to us in prophecy, in the New Testament, and in the writings of the Fathers of the first six centuries, is a body which possesses the prerogative of Catholicity, i.e. of general diffusion, not only as a matter of right, but in actual fact.” -NewAdvent.org

There was always one true Church, from the beginning, and it was that Church that combatted the heresies as they came up. It became known as the Catholic Church, ie. the universal Church while the NT Scripture was being written and compiled by those who, being followers of Christ in that true Church, were by definition Catholic. If they had not been Catholic, they would have been heretics, and their writings would not have been included in the Canon of Scripture. This was determined by whom? The Catholic Bishops in union with the Bishop of Rome, the Pope.

Sorry to have to break it to you but what you have in your New Testament was indeed brought to you, and preserved through the centuries before presses for you, by that Catholic Church. Moreover, the writers were inspired by the Holy Spirit and the writings, the books of the NT are inerrant. They cannot and do not teach error. How do we know this? Because the infallible teaching office of the Church (matters of faith and morals) identified which of the books available to them were actually inerrant. Inerrancy cannot be determined without an infallible authority. If you reject the infallible authority, ie. the Catholic Church, then you reject the inerrancy of NT Scripture.

No doubt the church helped to preserve the inspired-inerrant Scriptures. However it did not require the church to be infallible to do so since inspiration and inerrancy do not rest in the church but in the Scriptures themselves. The church can do nothing to make the Scriptures inspired-inerrant. Only God has that power. Inerrancy in Scripture has nothing to do with church.

 

[JLongoria]

No doubt the church helped to preserve the inspired-inerrant Scriptures. However it did not require the church to be infallible to do so since inspiration and inerrancy do not rest in the church but in the Scriptures themselves. The church can do nothing to make the Scriptures inspired-inerrant. Only God has that power. Inerrancy in Scripture has nothing to do with church.

Oh JA4.

I wish to maintain charity toward you because I know you seek truth, and for that you are commended. It is certainly God that wishes for you to seek Him, and I hope that you are receptive to His graces.

However, the Church is the very foundation of truth, as per the words of St. Paul, in the following verse:
I am writing you about these matters, although I hope to visit you soon. 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.

1 Timothy 3:14-15
Christ has given us that His Church is truth; His Church, suffice it to say, is not a book.

In 2 Timothy 3:16-17, St. Paul points to the scriptures as profitable certainly, but never does he call them the source of truth, though they do have truth in them; that is reserved for His Bride, the Church.

Instead, the Church promulgates truth to all believers. As St. Paul gives authority to the spoken word of the Apostles as actually the word of God:

And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers.

1 Thessalonians 2:13

Follow the pattern of the sound words which you have heard from me, in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus; guard the truth that has been entrusted to you by the Holy Spirit who dwells in us.

2 Timothy 1:13-14

You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me before many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.

2 Timothy 2:1-2
St. Paul not only says that his words are the word of God, but he also says they are worth passing on to others “who will be able to teach” as well!

 

[Gamera]

If they didn’t know what the OT Scriptures were then what is Jesus referring to in Matthew 21:42 when He says:
Jesus *said to them, “Did you never read in the Scriptures,‘The stone which the builders rejected,This became the chief corner stone;This came about from the Lord,And it is marvelous in our eyes’?

The Scriptures Jesus is referring to is the OT. Correct?

The version of the Old Testament which Jesus would have used is the version used by Catholics, which includes four books and parts of seven other books which Protestants reject from the Old Testament, calling them “apocrypha.” Therefore, if you mean to use the same “Scriptures” that Jesus used, you’ll have to accept the Catholic Canon and reject the Protestant Canon. That is the version of Scripture to which Jesus referred.

 

[Gamera]

No doubt the church helped to preserve the inspired-inerrant Scriptures. However it did not require the church to be infallible to do so since inspiration and inerrancy do not rest in the church but in the Scriptures themselves. The church can do nothing to make the Scriptures inspired-inerrant. Only God has that power. Inerrancy in Scripture has nothing to do with church.

“…the church of the living God [is] the pillar and bulwark of the truth,” 1 Tim 3:15.

Infallibility, inspiration, and inerrancy all mean different things. Nobody claims that Church teaching today is inspired, meaning God Himself putting words in the leader’s mouths. Only Scripture and Apostolic Tradition must be accepted as inspired. The Church acting in its teaching authority is infallible (protected from error) or else 1 Tim 3:15 means nothing.

 

[guanophore]

If they didn’t know what the OT Scriptures were then what is Jesus referring to in Matthew 21:42 when He says:
Jesus *said to them, “Did you never read in the Scriptures,‘The stone which the builders rejected,This became the chief corner stone;This came about from the Lord,And it is marvelous in our eyes’?

The Scriptures Jesus is referring to is the OT. Correct?

Yes, he was, but some of his audience did not consider what He quoted Scripture. We can see this attitude persisting decades after His death, when Paul is able to start arguements between the pharisees and the Saducees because they recognized different collections as authoritative.

No doubt the church helped to preserve the inspired-inerrant Scriptures. However it did not require the church to be infallible to do so since inspiration and inerrancy do not rest in the church but in the Scriptures themselves. The church can do nothing to make the Scriptures inspired-inerrant. Only God has that power. Inerrancy in Scripture has nothing to do with church.

Yes, it requires infallibility, because God could not allow the fallen nature of man to make a mistake when it came to His word. Therefore, by His Spirit He ensured that the right books were written, preserved, canonized, published, and promulgated. Infallibility does not rest in the Church, but it God.

Jer 1:11-12
12 Then the LORD said to me, “You have seen well, for I am watching over my word to perform it.”

The inerrancy in scripture has to do with the Church to the extent that Holy men were inspired by God to write it. These people were sold out Catholics, willing to give their lives to put into writing what God had revealed to them.

 

[Usagi]

The Catholic church did not “give” anyone the Scriptures. Rather God used the church to define what the canon of the NT was to be for the edification of believers.

Yeah, that’s a better formulation, truly.

I think what the previous poster was getting at is simply that the later-founded churches owe their current possession of the Bible to the older churches (like us).

Of course, it’s ultimately God who saw that His Word was preserved, but He used the Christians of the time (who, at the time the various canons were promulgated, were definitely Catholic in the West) to do it.

Usagi

 

[uther]

No doubt the church helped to preserve the inspired-inerrant Scriptures. However it did not require the church to be infallible to do so since inspiration and inerrancy do not rest in the church but in the Scriptures themselves. The church can do nothing to make the Scriptures inspired-inerrant. Only God has that power. Inerrancy in Scripture has nothing to do with church.

You are correct that it is God that guarantees infallibility. That is precisely what Jesus promised to Peter. On her own, without that guarantee of the Holy Spirit, the Catholic Church would have disappeared long ago.
You are also right to say that nobody other than God can make Scriptures inspired-inerrant. But what you are forgetting is that the books that you see in your New Testament were not the only writings around at the time. Some of those writings were clearly heretical. The attacks on the Church started very early. Some other writings were orthodox yet not considered inspired in the final determination. Churches were using writings other than our present Canon and some people thought that some of the books in our NT did not belong there. The point is, without the infallible guidance of the Holy Spirit, the Catholic Bishops and the Pope (Damasus) of the time would not necessarily know the difference between inspired-inerrant and what was not.
Given the doctrine of many present day Protestant churches, if they were given the great pile of writings that the Catholic Church had available at the time, I am not sure that they would be able recognize all that is Sacred Scripture in the New Testament. Martin Luther wanted to toss out the Book of James, because it disagreed with his theology. He also wanted to re-write some of the teachings of St. Paul. There are many passages of Scripture that Sola Scriptura adherents skip right over today. If they were given the task would they leave them out? I Timothy 3:15 comes to mind, which tells us that the Church is the pillar ground of the truth, not the Scriptures alone, as Sola Scriptura teaches.

As to inerrancy of Scripture having nothing to do with the Church I would repeat that the people who wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit were the Church, the Catholic Church. What they wrote was from the faith that they practiced, either as Apostles or as taught them from the Apostles.
And you will notice that much of what St. Paul wrote was to correct errors and practices in Churches he had already started. Other than a few sparse references in the Book of Acts we really do not have the text of St. Paul’s sermons to them, his initial instructions, his detailed liturgical instructions, etc., etc. He did not write manuals for all of these essentials for regular worship and practice. Rather he wrote to correct problems. If he had not been in prison so much we might not have had even those letters. He preferred to go to them in person. But the letters were all written to Christians who had already begun the practice of their faith.

As others have pointed out, Scripture and Holy Tradition are not two separate independent entities. Rather the New Testament Scripture is one part of Holy Tradition, a special part indeed, but it came out of that Holy Tradition that began before it was written down. The apostles were not called to be stenographers of Christ and we are fortunate that some wrote what they saw and heard and others like Luke, who were not of the twelve, nevertheless saw it as important to write down some of what he had heard.

We know that St. John’s Gospel tells us that there was much more that Jesus said and did that is not written in the Gospels. The NT Scripture even proves this, even if it were not obvious to common sense. We have all heard the saying that it is more blessed to give than to receive. Jesus said it, but it is not in the gospels. It turns out that St. Luke records it in Acts. But not on his own account but as recording what St. Paul says. It is St. Paul that quotes Jesus. Where did he hear it? In or around the Damascus road experience with the risen Christ? Or from St. Peter later on? We don’t know. All we know is that the Church, by her authority from Christ declared that the Acts of the Apostles is divinely inspired and inerrant, and we can take it to be true.

Why did the Church canonize this particular group of books and letters in the first place? What was the motivation? Simply to have some Scripture to go along with the Jewish Scripture? To have a rule of faith for Protestants some 1200 years later? How did the question come up? From our point of view, long after the printing press, it seems natural and even necessary to have it written down. In fact, the Sola Scriptura assumption seems almost reasonable. We want everything written down.
In the beginning, when a few writings became known, it was the natural tendency for those Churches that had a particular letter or book, especially from an Apostle, to read them as part of the liturgy, just as they would read the Law, Prophets and Psalms, carrying over the Jewish tradition and practice. Eventually, as these writings and copies proliferated, it became necessary to decide which ones should be allowed to be read at Mass. This is what the process of Canonization was about; the authorizing of certain writings for use at Mass.
I would submit that if the early Church had not decided to canonize any of the NT books and letters, the faith of the Catholic Church would be the same as it is today.

 

[Usagi]

No doubt the church helped to preserve the inspired-inerrant Scriptures. However it did not require the church to be infallible to do so since inspiration and inerrancy do not rest in the church but in the Scriptures themselves. The church can do nothing to make the Scriptures inspired-inerrant. Only God has that power. Inerrancy in Scripture has nothing to do with church.

Certainly that is true, and if you think that’s what the Catholics on this thread are saying (that the Church has the power to make a work inerrant or inspired) then you have misunderstood (or we have miscommunicated).

God inspires Scripture. The Church merely recognizes what He has inspired.

Usagi

 

[justasking4]

Certainly that is true, and if you think that’s what the Catholics on this thread are saying (that the Church has the power to make a work inerrant or inspired) then you have misunderstood (or we have miscommunicated).

God inspires Scripture. The Church merely recognizes what He has inspired.

Usagi

I agree.

 

[JLongoria]

Certainly that is true, and if you think that’s what the Catholics on this thread are saying (that the Church has the power to make a work inerrant or inspired) then you have misunderstood (or we have miscommunicated).

God inspires Scripture. The Church merely recognizes what He has inspired.

Usagi

Don’t forget though: the Church recognizes what He has inspired infallibly.

Men are not pre-disposed being able to discern the word of God without it having been given to us, especially at the time the Bible was being compiled, which is why the Catholic Church relied on Sacred Tradition in those early years.

The Gnostic Gospels are a perfect example of this. There are certain books that claim (which is most likely not true) Apostolic authorship which are not included in the bible because they didn’t stand up to the test of Sacred Tradition, the oral word of God that had been given to the Apostles (and their successors) by Christ in the first place.

 

[justasking4]

JLongoria;4176632]Don’t forget though: the Church recognizes what He has inspired infallibly.

Has the church infallibly recognized “What did Christ teach that wasn’t written,and if it wasn’t written how can you be sure He taught it”?
If so where and can you give some examples what Christ taught that is not written down?

Men are not pre-disposed being able to discern the word of God without it having been given to us, especially at the time the Bible was being compiled, which is why the Catholic Church relied on Sacred Tradition in those early years.

The Gnostic Gospels are a perfect example of this. There are certain books that claim (which is most likely not true) Apostolic authorship which are not included in the bible because they didn’t stand up to the test of Sacred Tradition, the oral word of God that had been given to the Apostles (and their successors) by Christ in the first place.

 

[Gamera]

Has the church infallibly recognized “What did Christ teach that wasn’t written,and if it wasn’t written how can you be sure He taught it”?
If so where and can you give some examples what Christ taught that is not written down?

Please see my answer in Post 768.

 

[justasking4]

Originally Posted by justasking4
Has the church infallibly recognized “What did Christ teach that wasn’t written,and if it wasn’t written how can you be sure He taught it”?
If so where and can you give some examples what Christ taught that is not written down?

Gamera
Please see my answer in Post 768.

Here is your post:
"Apostolic Tradition is the preaching of the Apostles. It is God’s word, not men’s. “And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers,” 1 Thes 2:13.

Most of Apostolic Tradition overlaps Scripture (for instance, the accounts of the life, ministry, miracles, death and resurrection of Jesus appear both in Scripture and in Tradition). If you mean something which is only in Apostolic Tradition and isn’t in Scripture, the easiest example is the canon of Scripture itself (Scripture doesn’t say which books belong to the Bible – we know which books belong to the Bible from the Apostles’ preaching)."

Where is this “Tradition” to be found? Secondly, your answer does not address what was it that Jesus taught not recorded in Scripture? I’m not talking about the canon since we have written evidence for it rather i’m asking for specific examples of what Jesus taught or did not recorded in the Scriptures. That has yet to be shown.

 

[ryanoneil]

Your answer does not address what was it that Jesus taught not recorded in Scripture? I’m not talking about the canon since we have written evidence for it rather i’m asking for specific examples of what Jesus taught or did not recorded in the Scriptures. That has yet to be shown.

Where does Jesus specifically teach that He is divine in the Bible?

 

[n2thelight]

Why do you all think the apostles were Catholic?

Christ never forced anyone to follow Him,yet the Catholic Church persecuted all that did not believe as they did.

“For over a thousand years, the Roman Catholic Church hunted down “heretics” and killed them. Some of these “heretics” were people with strange beliefs. However, many of them were Bible-believing Christians.”

How do you all explain these killings?

John 16:2
“Yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.”

 

[JLongoria]

Why do you all think the apostles were Catholic?

Christ never forced anyone to follow Him,yet the Catholic Church persecuted all that did not believe as they did.

“For over a thousand years, the Roman Catholic Church hunted down “heretics” and killed them. Some of these “heretics” were people with strange beliefs. However, many of them were Bible-believing Christians.”

How do you all explain these killings?

John 16:2
“Yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.”

Ho ho! The Black Legend!

I was wondering when that drivel would come in and attempt to ruin a valid conversation regarding Catholic theology.

First off, inviduals with power who happened to be Catholic persecuted people, not the Catholic Church itself. For instance, the terrible Spanish Inquisition? Started by the monarchs of Spain with political motives, telling the Holy See (that’s the Vatican for you folks) that it was in order to assure that recent converts maintained doctrinal unity with the rest of Christendom.

Ferdinand II of Aragon pressured pope Sixtus IV to agree to let him set up an Inquisition controlled by the monarchy by threatening to withdraw military support at a time when the Turks were a threat to Rome. Sixtus IV later accused the Spanish inquisition of being overzealous and accused the monarchs of being greedy. The Pope issued a bull to stop the Inquisition but eventually was pressured into withdrawing it.

Your withdrawal to this argument - which has pretty much disappeared from intelligent circles of Catholic-Protestant discussion - only shows how immature your theology is, and how you are effectively being clears throat “pwned”.

You can’t even stay to the topic at hand for one second, so you quickly divert attention to prevent everyone from seeing that you are failing miserably.

Protestants also killed Catholics in England, Scotland, and Ireland. In fact, in Ireland, they starved Irish Catholics and other religious to death during the Great Famine. Under Henry VII and his formation of the Church of England, Catholics were persecuted on pain of death from 1540 to 1731. That’s much longer than any of the Inquistions, and resulted in a lot more deaths.

Yet you won’t find Catholics pointing that out as a point of serious intellectual debate because people do bad things sometimes. Catholics and Protestants alike have done horrible things; Pope John Paul the Great, God rest his soul, even came out and offered apologies to all those who were persecuted under the guise of Catholic faith, and extended a hand of peace and love.

And you come in here and disgrace that with your worthless insults.

N2, grow up. You’re being beaten by the excellent apologists in here, so stick to the topic: we’re talking about Our Lord, Jesus Christ here.

In response to your John 16:2 quip, Christ is the only Lord the Catholic faith professes, and long before you were even a twinkle in your father’s eye, Catholics were dying for Him.

St. Ignatius of Antioch wrote in his Letter to the Smyrnaeans (107 AD), only 27 years after the death of St. John the Apostle, calling the Church catholic. You know what happened to that blessed man, rich in the faith of the Apostles?

He was torn to shreds by animals in the Colosseum.

Hmm, I wonder what he wrote in his letter, only 27 years after the death of the Beloved Apostle.

“They [the docetists] abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they confess not the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins, and which the Father, of His goodness, raised up again. They who deny the gift of God are perishing in their disputes”

“Ruh roh” once again! They did observe the Eucharist as Catholics believe, didn’t they! And what’s worse for you is that every Christian in unity with the Church observed it too.

And they were willing to die to defend that faith.

How do you explain this?

Speak not on matters you don’t understand, and stop listening to that drivel you’re been associating yourself with. As my priest says, “garbage in, garbage out.” You, my friend, have been taking a lot of garbage in; it shows.

 

[uther]

Why do you all think the apostles were Catholic?

It isn’t a question of thinking it was so, it is just a matter of fact.

n2thelight:

Christ never forced anyone to follow Him,yet the Catholic Church persecuted all that did not believe as they did.

You are sure that was the Church and not the secular powers of the day who were Catholic?

“For over a thousand years, the Roman Catholic Church hunted down “heretics” and killed them. Some of these “heretics” were people with strange beliefs. However, many of them were Bible-believing Christians.”

How do you all explain these killings?

That is an interesting statement, and I see that it has quotation marks. What is the source? Which 1000 years are we talking about here? The Bible-believing Christians designation is a relatively recent one, generally applied to an era since the invention of the printing press (a Catholic inventor whose first publication was the Bible) which has been only 500+ years, when Bibles have been readily available and affordable.

I hope those “strange beliefs” you are referring to are not, for example, the Cathars. I have heard some Protestants try to link them along some chain of Bible-believing Christians opposed to the much-hated Catholic Church. It sounds romantic until you discover what they actually believed and practiced, and the only doctrinal commonality you will find with them is a protest against the Catholic Church.
Had these “strange beliefs” arisen in Luther’s Germany, rest assured he would have hounded them out with all the fervor of the later witch hunts that Protestants so enjoyed right into the era of infamous Salem trials.

 

[n2thelight]

Yet my original question has not been answered,what did Christ teach that was’nt written

 

[JLongoria]

Yet my original question has not been answered,what did Christ teach that was’nt written

Lol, I knew you would change the subject.

How very, very sad.