Originally posted by Matt Black:
Originally posted by DHK:
[qb] Some do; and some of them are cults. But if they do and cannot verify what they say through Scriptures they are false teachers leading people astray.
Ah, but they do verify what they say through Scripture. And that's the fundamental problem: the Devil himself can quote Scripture.
1 Corinthians 2:12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.
--The true believer understands the Word and what God is saying through the Word. He is able to do so through the guidance of the Holy Spirit which dwells within him, and illuminates his mind to the truth of Scripture. This is the reason why almost all evangelicals agree with each on the basics of salvation, Jesus Christ and the fundamentals of the faith. In fact they agree more than they disagree. I would be willing to venture out and say that the evangelicals agree and have more in common than Catholics do within their own Catholic Body. And so the doctrine of sola scriptura is proven true and not false.
However, when it comes to the unsaved man, the leader of cults, and the Catholic Church:
1 Corinthians 2:14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
--This has been proven over and over again. Those who know not Christ are unable to understand the Bible. They have not the Spirit of God which gives illumination to the truth of the Word of God. They cannot know the things of God. Is it any wonder that Catholics and cult leaders (and followers) are confused when it comes to the interpretation of the Bible. They don't have the Holy Spirit to guide them. For the true, born again believer, sola scriptura still holds true.
Jesus himself warned us that there would be many false teachers in the last days. However he never said anything about a denomination, and certainly nothing about a magesterium!
What about His charge to the apostles in Matt 18:18 and Matt 18:18-19. Sounds like the setting up of a teaching authority to me.
This isn't the setting up of a teaching authority at all. Jesus was setting up principles of discipline for a local church, any local church.
Matthew 18:17 And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican.
--How do you think this command can be carried out except in the context of the local church? It cannot be carried out by a denomination such as the RCC, and they don't even try as seen in the events that have taken place with the gross immorality in Boston. In 1Cor.5 the believers of the church in Corinth disciplined that one who was having immoral relations with his father's wife. This is what Christ was referring to. The ultimate authority was the pastor who was the overseer of the church. The government was congregational. It was the church as a whole that took action, with the pastor overseeing the action. Rome had no place in this discipline as did no other church. Each church in the New Testament was independent of the other.
On the other hand both Christ and the apostles had a lot to say about the local church.
Only on your individualistic interpretation of ecclesia
Do you know how to use a lexicon. There is only one meaning of ekklesia. It means assembly, congregation.
The proper teaching authority is the pastor of the local church.
I really really hope you don't mean that. Most of the kooky individuals I've referred to have been pastors!
Yes I really mean that. Most heretics I have met are leaders of cults and RCC churches.
As I explained above God uses those that are saved, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and thus able to rightly divide the Word of truth. Their teaching authority comes straight from God Himself. I was called to the ministry by God, not man. I was ordained by God, not man. The pastors of some churches may have recognized that God called me into his ministry, but it was God that called me, and God that ordained me into the ministry, not man. I submit myself to God, and him alone.
You can't find "The Tradition of the Church" in Scripture. You have just set yourself up as a pope with that statement, in fact you have just practiced a form of soul liberty setting yourself as the ultimate authority on the interpretation of the Bible. Only you claim, like David Koreh, that there is only one Teaching Authority--whoever that may be in your mind. You have just succumbed to the mark of a cult.
Oh for goodness sake! This is getting plain silly now. So you would compare the Catholics, Orthodox, Anglicans and Lutherans to the guys at Waco? Puh-leese!
Yes, I certainly would. They all have one teaching authority. So do you. They all have mindless followers that follow that teaching authority. So does the RCC.
Let me tell you what Tradition is. It is the memory of the Church, not man-made, not the traditions of men, but the Church's practice as guided by the Holy Spirit throughout the ages, the doctrine and practice of the pillar and foundation of the Truth.
This is false, false right to the core.
First they are man-made traditions and nothing to do with the Bible--Purgatory, the Assumption, the Immaculate Conception, limbo, indulgences, prayers to the dead, confession to a priest, transubstantiation, etc. These are man-made doctrinal heresies of the Catholic Church. Remember them if you will. They were not practiced by the early church. They are not taught in the Bible.
It is how we interpret Scripture, not making up doctrine with our Bible in front of us, not relying solely on the word of a pastor however good or bad he might be, but listening to the mind of Christ which is in His Body, the Church. To use a literary analogy, I culd learn a lot about Tolkien by reading Humphrey Carpenter's biography about him. Or I could talk to his friends and family, the people who knew him. Better still I could do both. Jesus' friends and family are His Church.
"The natural man understands not the things of the Spirit of God."
The RCC has never figured this out. They don't understand the Bible because they can't.
It is not a matter of how you interpret the Bible; the Bible interprets itself. It has only one interpretation. This is why evangelicals can agree so much on what that interpretation is, but Catholics are blind to it. I can take a dozen Catholics, and any given portion of Scripture, ask them what it means, and get a dozen different answers. Fortunately evangelicals, for the most part, know what they believe.
So the, what is the proper teaching authority in not the Catholic Church: The Anglican Church? the Magesterium? your particular brand of Seminary? or is just you?
Those who engage with the Apostolic Tradition and in some way with the Apostolic Succession of the Church: Catholics, Orthodox, Anglicans, Lutherans and Methodists to an extent. There is now remarkable theological convergence between these denominations, following Vatican II, the Joint Declaration on Justification by Faith between Catholics and Lutherans, the Porvoo Agreement between Anglicans and Lutherans, and the withdrawal of the excommunications between the Pope and the Patriarch of Constantinople in 1965.
As already noted, the Catholics do not believe in justification by faith. Thus the above is absolutely false. The RCC is trying to bring other religions underneath its umbrella. It has no intention of giving up any part of its diabolical doctrine, but rather trying to get other religions to accept RCC doctrine. The anathemas pronounced against Luther still stand to this day.
DHK
