Ruiz and DiamondLady, this may be more a matter of semantics than real disagreement. However, if the Bible is sufficient we don't need teachers and preachers. Let's just give everyone a bible, encourage them to read it and watch them grow spiritually. I have been wasting my time teaching Sunday School these last 25+ years, and Ruiz, you are certainly wasting your time preparing and delivering all those sermons. But if we didn't, we would have some people with really strange ideas concerning our faith because the Bible just isn't clear about a lot of things. Even those of us who have lived with the Bible all our lives find ourselves in sharp disagreement with one another over what it means. E.g., Calvinism v. Arminianism; dispensationalism v. preterism; elder led churches v. congragational churches, etc.
As for tradition we do rely heavily on it, whether we want to admit it or not. For example:
1. Most of us meet in dedicated buildings without any scriptural authority to do so.
2. We observe Sunday as the Lord's day, although there is no clear mandate for it in scripture.
3. Our church services usually include an invitation, but there is no scriptural authority for doing this.
4. The canon of scripture must be based on tradition because the Bible doesn't tell us what should be included or excluded.
5. Our churches band together in different denominations and within denominations we have associations and conventions, all without scriptural authority.
I could go on but I think you get the drift.
