The Church before the Bible

[Xpiatio]

At my parish’s RCIA classes, they have started the meeting with reading next Sunday’s readings and then discussing how God spoke to us through these readings. Alot of the catechumins (?sic) and candidates responded that the readings were hard ones to piece together. The discussion ensued among the people that showed up for the class that night and ended up by “good thing we have the Bible now, unlike what Christians did before the Bible was around”. I kept my mouth shut, but was thinking that a statement like that could possibly imply that the church didn’t know the meanings the letters that were being written at the time. I debated to speak up or not, but I sat back and pondered what the attendees were saying. I could not get past the thought of “wow, they don’t get it. they don’t understand the authority of the church in the early days before the Bible”. Or perhaps “wow, they believe that in order to be a Christian, you need the a Bible. but that wasn’t the case in the early church”

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean to down play the Bible. I believe it is all inspired by God. That it is God’s word. I find it hard to believe that the Church could possibly meandering around with “what ever you say goes” in some non-organized manner. The church had very defined beliefs.

 

[Xpiatio]

Now that I re-read this, this doesn’t come across the way that I want it. Moderators can you please remove this thread?

 

[Joe_5859]

Now that I re-read this, this doesn’t come across the way that I want it. Moderators can you please remove this thread?

You probably need to PM a moderator to request the thread be removed. There is no guarantee they will see this post of yours if you don’t draw their attention to it.

For what it’s worth, such a comment doesn’t necessarily undercut Church authority. I might say something like “Good thing we have the Catechism now, unlike what Catholics did before the Catechism was around.” That doesn’t mean the Church had no authority beforehand, it just means the Catechism is a great blessing. So too with the Bible.

Though you were the one who was there, so the context might not lend itself to such an interpretation. I just throw it out there.

 

[thankulord]

I would like to respond to what I think you wanted to express. Possibly many of the participants have a protestant background, so they are just learning about the Church. It is difficult to just throw away what someone has been taught and ingrained into ones belief system for years, ( for example, solo scriptura) no matter how sincerely one would like to become Catholic. Also difficult if the floor has been opened up for discussion for the leader to say…“No, that’s incorrect.” Why? Because this will just close down discussion, so incorrect information was discussed that surprised you. Maybe you can expect more of this as participants learn about what the Church teaches.

 

[rick607]

If you mean Church like Catholic church that wasn’t around. If your talking about the Acts 2 Church of the first Christ Ones ( Christians) they did have a Bible -Old testament scriptures. They knew who God was and obviously had Jesus teachings . Not the 66 books we now have called the Bible but they had great beginnings started by that Rock - Jesus Christ !

 

[Bob_Crowley]

… they don’t understand the authority of the church in the early days before the Bible". Or perhaps “wow, they believe that in order to be a Christian, you need the a Bible. but that wasn’t the case in the early church”

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean to down play the Bible. I believe it is all inspired by God. That it is God’s word. I find it hard to believe that the Church could possibly meandering around with “what ever you say goes” in some non-organized manner. The church had very defined beliefs.

The early church wasn’t all that clearly defined either. If if had been, there wouldn’t have been the heresies that jumped up all over the place in the first few centuries. I lifted the following off a Catholic Answers article at the olllowingn link, and just kept the headings. Even the book of Acts mentions the Circumcisers, and Paul rebuked Peter of all people over this issue. -

catholic.com/tracts/the-great-heresies

he Circumcisers (1st Century)

Gnosticism (1st and 2nd Centuries)

Montanism (Late 2nd Century)

Sabellianism (Early 3rd Century)

Arianism (4th Century)

The point I’m making is that it took time for the Church to get its organisational act together. Even core doctrines like the Trinity weren’t cut and dried. So while we may be right in thinking the early church didn’t have a formal Bible as we know it, we also need to recognise there wasn’t a formal church structure either for quite a while.

 

[PJM]

=Xpiatio;12703390]At my parish’s RCIA classes, they have started the meeting with reading next Sunday’s readings and then discussing how God spoke to us through these readings. Alot of the catechumins (?sic) and candidates responded that the readings were hard ones to piece together. The discussion ensued among the people that showed up for the class that night and ended up by “good thing we have the Bible now, unlike what Christians did before the Bible was around”. I kept my mouth shut, but was thinking that a statement like that could possibly imply that the church didn’t know the meanings the letters that were being written at the time. I debated to speak up or not, but I sat back and pondered what the attendees were saying. I could not get past the thought of “wow, they don’t get it. they don’t understand the authority of the church in the early days before the Bible”. Or perhaps “wow, they believe that in order to be a Christian, you need the a Bible. but that wasn’t the case in the early church”

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean to down play the Bible. I believe it is all inspired by God. That it is God’s word. I find it hard to believe that the Church could possibly meandering around with “what ever you say goes” in some non-organized manner. The church had very defined beliefs.

Excellent post

Word of Mouth was the Tradition of the OT Jews and carried over in the early church by the Apostles and there appointed Bishops and Priest:

John 14:26
“But the Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring all things to your mind, whatsoever I shall have said to you”