ND,Steve welcome
Steve this is false. The church may not have had a book titled the Bible but it certainly had the writings that make it up since all of them were completed by 70AD. Ignatius was the first to push for an official canon because he knew it was the only way to effectively refute the gnostics and later the marcionites.
You’re a little off here. The initial church leaders accepted any writings that came from the Apostles and their contemporaries like Luke, Mark etc. Eventually the church noticed there were works in general being accepted across the board. So for instance when the church leaders saw the churches in Asia were reading the same things as say the church in Rome, Africa etc. they assumed the Holy Spirit was guiding the church. Eventually the canon was ratified but the church never claimed they made the selections. The church always claimed they received the canon from the Holy Spirit.
Well this could spawn an entirely different discussion but suffice it to say Luther did not throw out the 7 deutero works by himself. The Jews never accepted the apocrypha and neither did Jerome nor many early Popes. They claimed the apocrypha were good reading for edification but never for doctrines of faith. The first lists of canonical works for the OT never included the works of the apocrypha.
I don’t think anyone would argue the catholic/universal church under the guidance of the Holy Spirit assembled the canon. But now that we have it it must be our guiding principal. Church leaders come and go, many become corrupt, many distort the truth, etc. etc. etc. Scripture is the only constant.
Absolutely correct. Augustine made this very point and stated if the church had not declared the scriptures to be true then he wouldn’t have believed them.
I disagree here. We can never prove a tradition was a teaching of Christ. Ever play the phone game? Tell someone something and then pass it along. By the time the 50th person is reached the oral truth is already distorted.
The Trinity - One place among many - Matthew 28:
19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in [2] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit
Sounds like the trinity to me. Do you really believe the church defined the trinity because someone orally said there was a tri-une GOD?? The council of Nicea appealed to scripture to define the trinity because the elements were there.
As far as worshiping on Sunday. Right from the book of Acts 20:7 and I quote:
On the **first day **of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight.
No scripture teaches us the Father, Son, and Spirit. The church was trying to understand the relationship between the 3 and whether or not they were from the same substance, of the same substance etc. etc. Things which we as humans could never understand. This argument has been made here so many times ad-nauseum.
The church did not exist without scripture for the 1st 400 years. That’s a complete falsehood. Everyone and everything that wrote what’s contained in scripture existed and died before the end of the 1st century and was already in widespread circulation. The exception may have been John who could have lived into the very early 2nd century. To say no one read scripture until 400 years later is just ludicrous. As far as Christ never commanding anything to be written down? How do you know? Christ said I will send a helper to lead you into the truth. And voila we have their writings. All scripture is breathed out by GOD so suffice it to say Christ most definitely commanded things to be written down otherwise we would not have scripture. And the Roman Catholic Church’s tradition does conflict with scripture.
Absolutely false again. Private interpretation is NOT Sola Scriptura. The reformers believed individual Christians have the right to read scripture, but not make private interpretations that are incorrect. You are very confused here.
And the reformers would never disagree with you. But that does not mean the Roman Catholic Church interpreted scripture perfectly.
Another old argument. Again private interpretation is not Sola Scriptura. You are so obviously misinformed. Once you gain the correct understanding of Sola Scriptura and the notion of private interpretation then we can talk further. Until then we’ll just disagree.
Well done.
About personal interpretation, Martin Chemnitz says:
Sola scriptura is not about private interpretation, nor is it about excluding creeds, the ECF’s, Tradition, and the Ecumenical Councils.
modernreformation.org/default.php?page=printfriendly&var1=Print&var2=19
Jon
