Is Word of God equal to scripture?

[thessalonian]

"You have a BIble, I am sure. Try to find in the
BIBLE any Scripture which states that your pope's
word is equal to Scripture. "

First of all it is not all of his words that are equal to scripture. It is only when he is passing down the Oral Traditions that allow us to understand scripture. Here is the verse that does the trick in those rare circumstances when he actually does this. Mt. 16:19 "WHATEVER YOU bind on earth shall be bound in heaven....". Now I know you won't like the verse but it definitely says what you are asking. They are equal because they authentically interprut what the scriptures intend to convey.

Now God would not bind a lie would he. So we have the gaurantee of Jesus Christ himself that when a Pope intends to bind will not be truth.

"I once belonged to a church in which a huge
number of its members held the same view of their
ministers and written words. I find the whole
concept to be ludicrous. "

As ludicrous as when Jesus told his disciples "he who hears you hears me ?"

Blessings

 

[thessalonian]

Originally posted by Abiyah:
By the way, Thess, you stated clearly in one of your
posts that you believe the Bible to be the Word of
our God. This is one of the things that confuses me
here. Do you believe what you wrote or do you not?
If you believe what you wrote, there is no argument;
the argument, then, is that you believe that your
church also regularly produces the word of our
God. It is YOU that needs to prove your point.

Your church has told you that they are the word of
our God. You have their word on it. Their word
and a dollar-fifty will not buy coffee around here.

Now there you go misrepresenting what my Church teaches. They do not say they are the word of our God. And I have explained over and over the difference between saying scriputre is the Word of God and the Word of God is equal to scripture. I am sorry you do not understand. I will try to explain it again. As I stated up above if a man looks out toward Chessapeak bay and says there is the Atlantic Ocean does that mean that the Gulf of Mexico is not in the Atlantic Ocean. You interprut Word of God = scripture but scripture says "hold fast to the traditions that you have recieved WHETHER BY WORD OF MOUTH or in writing (scripture) from us.". Now I can deduce from this verse that WOG = scripture (written tradition) + Oral Tradition. It to me is as clear as can be. Both what was written and what the recieved orally are quite clearly authoritative and so are the Word of God! They must of course compliement one another and not be in contradiction to one another but they are nevertheless equally authoritative by Paul's words and the Word of God.
Scripture is the Word of God for God divinely inspired them. But no less authoritative and divinely inspired are the Oral understandings that go along with them. So you see I agree that scripture is the Word of God just as 3 is a part of 6. But scripture is not the whole word of God. Put another way, with Bob Ryans example, he said Ex 20 is the Word of God, yet is it the whole word of God. No. You and I would agree at least that WOG = Ex20 + the rest of the Bible. I say it is more and have presented scriptures to back it up.


81. "'Sacred Scripture is the speech of God as it is put down in writing under the breath of the Holy Spirit.'[DV 9.]
'And (Holy) Tradition transmits in its entirety the WORD OF GOD which has been entrusted to the apostles by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit. It transmits it to the successors of the apostles so that, enlightened by the Spirit of truth, they may faithfully preserve, expound and spread it abroad by their preaching.'[DV 9.]"

97. "'Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture make up a single sacred deposit of the WORD OF GOD' [DV 10] in which, as in a mirror, the pilgrim Church contemplates God, the source of all her riches."


86. "'Yet this Magisterium is not superior to the WORD OF GOD, but is its servant. It teaches only what has been handed on to it. At the divine command and with the help of the Holy Spirit, it listens to this devotedly, guards it with dedication and expounds it faithfully. All that it proposes for belief as being divinely revealed is drawn from this single deposit of faith.'[DV 10 para 2.]"

If one has a scripture and a misinterprutation of that scripture does one have the WOG? i.e. if his interprutation of that scripture turns it in to a lie he does not have the WOG for God cannot lie.

Titus 1:2
in the hope of eternal life, which God, WHO CANNOT LIE, promised long ages ago,

God went to all that trouble of creating an infallible book through fallible men, yet he cannot through fallible men give us an infallible interprutation of that word?

Blessings

 

[Ray Berrian]

GraceSaves,

You spoke of the "Royal Priesthood," which is found in I Peter 2:9. I should have added this passage. Apparently, there is something greater than the Roman Catholic Priesthood. Too bad the Catholics don't wish to receive this truth. If Peter was trying to set up a framework for a budding Romanism, he sure neglected to do this in his two epistles. The holy nation of Israel and a unique people was what was really on his mind. This 'priesthood' was to be a holy people unto the Lord. [Matthew 5:8; I Peter 1:15 & Leviticus 11:44 a,b,c,d]

 

[BobRyan]

Thess said --
I have never said Ex 20 is not the Word of God. it is. All of scripture is the Word of God. That's great. We agree.

Game over.

Thess --
Now answer the question that this thread presents. Is the Word of God = scripture ALONE!

According to Acts 17:11 the WORD of the Apostle is judged by the Scriptures to see "IF THOSE things spoken by Paul WERE TRUE".

Your model requires circular reasoning. The Bible model establishes itself as the authority by which all other teaching/doctrine is tested.

End of story.

In Christ,

Bob

 

[GraceSaves]

Originally posted by Ray Berrian:
GraceSaves,

You spoke of the "Royal Priesthood," which is found in I Peter 2:9. I should have added this passage.

Yes and no. I was speaking of 1 Peter 2:9:

"But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light."

in reference to Exodus 19:6

"and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel."

Those in the OT were not all ministerial priests. Some were. Those in the New Testament are not all ministerial priests. Some are.

Originally posted by Ray Berrian:
Apparently, there is something greater than the Roman Catholic Priesthood. Too bad the Catholics don't wish to receive this truth.

Is what is referred to in Exodus "greater" than the priesthood of Aaron? If so, then why did God have it exist? And we don't accept this truth? Excuse me sir, but with that answer, you don't know a thing about Catholic teaching, because we do IN FACT believe in the universal priesthood of men. That does not mean that we are all MINISTERIAL priests, just like in the Old Testament.

 

[GraceSaves]

Bob,

Your answer is typical fare. If the Scriptures were the final authority, then they had no reason to listen to Paul. But they listened to Paul, who had a message NOT contained in their Scriptures, becasue the New Testament had not been written yet. Paul orally spoke the Word of God.

Your new little "game over" catch phrase is laughable, at best.

 

[Carson Weber]

"But Grant.. what Paul spoke was supposedly all written down" (BobRyan). Of course, the Bible doesn't teach that. This assumption is a tradition of men not found in the BIble.

 

[Abiyah]

Thess, my friend, you misuse the Scriptures,
applying them as neither the writers nor the
Inspirer, the Holy SPirit, intended them to be
applied. This error is probably the result of your
being taught "apostolic succession."

It just will not work, Thess.

 

[thessalonian]

Originally posted by Abiyah:
Thess, my friend, you misuse the Scriptures,
applying them as neither the writers nor the
Inspirer, the Holy SPirit, intended them to be
applied. This error is probably the result of your
being taught "apostolic succession."

It just will not work, Thess.

We certainly have a difference of opinion of what won't work. Just make sure that your opinion isn't based on another type of tradition.

God bless abiyah.

 

[GraceSaves]

Originally posted by Abiyah:
Do you believe what you wrote or do you not?
If you believe what you wrote, there is no argument;
the argument, then, is that you believe that your
church also regularly produces the word of our
God. It is YOU that needs to prove your point.

Your church has told you that they are the word of
our God. You have their word on it. Their word
and a dollar-fifty will not buy coffee around here.

You create a false situation, and you bring it up to simply avoid answering the original question, which is, IS THE WORD OF GOD EQUAL TO SCRIPTURE. You tried to throw it off track by bring up a tangeant against Catholics, which may or may not be valid, but is still dodging the issue.

Now, this false situation is further falsified because we don't believe what you say we believe. You wrote, "you believe that your
church also regularly produces the word of our
God. It is YOU that needs to prove your point."

We don't need to prove that, because we don't believe that. The Church is the "pillar of truth," that is, it SAFEGUARDS the Word of God. Revelation is CLOSED, and so the Church does not PRODUCE ever again the Word of God. It safeguards the faith once delivered to the saints. Some of this was written, while some was not (because the majority of the New Testament, the letters of St. Paul, were written to address SPECIFIC issues arrising in the Church at the time he wrote them, not a catechetal tool to explain the faith in minute detail.

All we have to show is that the faith of the Church has remained constant for nearly 2,000 years, which has been shown time and time again, despite people's frequent assumptions that a definition or the instantiation of dogma is the starting of a new belief, which it is not.

But, I understand. When we have our eyes closed and our hands over our ears screaming at the top of our lungs, its hard to understand.

 

[thessalonian]

Grace,


She won't publically admit it but I see from the change in tone of her writing to me that the spirit is convicting her. My wife went through this difficulty before she converted. In her heart she knew the things that she read about Catholicism were true. But it first showed in resentment. It is the WORD of GOD (of which scripture and Oral tradition are components) that convicts the soul. Heb 4:12. We must trust in God's Holy Word on that. As for Catholicism producing the Word of God, are the exegesies of Protestants productions of the Word of God. It seems rare these days that a Protestant will quote scripture to me. That is fine. But the explanations and interprutations, i.e. the words that the apply and say are equivalent to scripture are not production of new words of God. I would no more accuse her of such nonsense than I would claim that pigs can fly (except when shot out of a canon).

Blessings.

Blessings Abiyah. I will pray that the Lord will lead you. I do appreciate your comments on this thread.

 

[neal4christ]

After reading through this thread and reading a chapter from a book, I must admit, I can see no way that the Word of God is limited to Scripture ONLY. Scripture is the Word of God, but as someone else has said, the Word of God is not Scripture only.

There was an interesting point made in this book I am reading that I am still chewing on. Many of us (if not all) Protestants, at least Evangelicals, say that only those doctrines explicitly taught in the Bible are to be trusted in our system. However, this statement is not taught in Scripture, so logically, it would be false and something that we could not adhere to. Much like the one who says there are no moral absolutes. That statement itself is an absolute, thus defeating itself.

Just something interesting to chew on. I am racking my brain over and trying to make some sense of it.

In Christ,
Neal

 

[Ray Berrian]

Are there any parts of the Word of God that are not Scripture? Are there any parts of Scripture that are not the Words from the Lord God?

Please, list them.

 

[neal4christ]

Are there any parts of the Word of God that are not Scripture? Are there any parts of Scripture that are not the Words from the Lord God?

You are not getting it, Ray. All Scripture is the Word of God. But not all of the Word of God is Scripture. Jesus Christ is referred to as the Word, for starters. Using someone else's analogy, all dogs are mammals, but not all mammals are dogs. See?

In Christ,
Neal

 

[thessalonian]

With regard to the requirement that doctrine be literally expressed in scripture, I was listening to a debate between the famed James White and Robert Sungenis. Mr. Sungenis asked Mr. White if one who believes that God has one will and one nature was in heresy. To which Mr. White proclaimed yes he was. Then Mr. Sungenis asked for a scriptural proof of this position (Of course Catholics would agree that God has 2 natures, two wills). Mr. White could only throw out "they crucified the Lord of Glory" from colosians I believe, then do some handwaving about how men are expected to use their minds. But it was a rather interesting exchange anyway. It may seem a minor issue, but that Jesus was fully man (thus had a human will, human nature) and fully God (thus had a divine will, divine nature) is crucial to the incarnation and understanding how God saved mankind.

Blessings

 

[thessalonian]

Originally posted by Ray Berrian:
Are there any parts of the Word of God that are not Scripture? Are there any parts of Scripture that are not the Words from the Lord God?

Please, list them.

Noone has ever said in this thread (at least not me) that there is any part of scripture that is not the Word of God. But when a Mormon says that they must baptize the dead by proxy because the Word of God says that early Christians baptized the dead (and they did) do they with their understanding of the verse + the verse have the word of God even though they have scripture? No. Yet a reasonable explanation says that Paul was just relating that some early Christians did without neccessarily condoning it. The scriptures do not tell us this however.

1 Corinthians 15:29
Otherwise, what will those do who are baptized for the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why then are they baptized for them?


One must have the scripture and one must have the correct understanding of the scripture or he does not have the Word of God.

Blessings

 

[neal4christ]

It may seem a minor issue, but that Jesus was fully man (thus had a human will, human nature) and fully God (thus had a divine will, divine nature) is crucial to the incarnation and understanding how God saved mankind.

I agree 100% with this. It is crucial!

In Christ,
Neal

 

[Ray Berrian]

thessalonian,

I agree with your entire post as to the baptism for the dead. Wow! Am I going to savor this experience of fully agreeing with a Roman Catholic brother.

Ray

 

[thessalonian]

Originally posted by Ray Berrian:
thessalonian,

I agree with your entire post as to the baptism for the dead. Wow! Am I going to savor this experience of fully agreeing with a Roman Catholic brother.

Ray

Two Protestants agreeing with me on back to back posts! I could have won the lottery and been rich with those chances. Oh well.

 

[thessalonian]

Bump for the weekend crowd.