Sola Scripture?

You are in trouble with your concepts because you interpret the Church as a specific Denomination.
The church there in 1 Tim is the Holy or Heavenly Universal Church as a whole, neither a specific local church nor specific denominations.
The Ecclesia means the Body of Christ and all the Born Again Believers belong to it even though their denominations are different. That is the concept of Church there and in Ephesians and Colossians.

I hope you are not sure that there existed no church outside Roman Catholic or Greek Orthodox as we read a lot of articles about the churches in China, Mongolia, North Korea, Japan, Samarkand area, India during the past 2 millenia. Their confessions and the testimonies are quite a lot.

Even the Churches are evaluated and assessed by the Scriptures. You may say that Church has the authority to canonize the Bible. That is a matter of Bible Canon. Church was established by Holy Spirit, and sometimes certain churches were wrong and therefore Paul and Christ condemned them very much as we read Galatians and Revelation 2-3.
If Bible canon is wrong, then the believers can discuss and verify it. Apart from that, if the Church tradition is wrong with a view to Scripture, it should be rectified.
If Catholic believes that Apocrypha should be included, then they should stick to their Bible only, instead of any Tradition. If Catholic Bible condemn the Idol Worship very much, then they should stop it! If Catholic Bible says all believers are the Priests, then they should follow it. If Catholic Bible says " ye should be called Brethren" or should not call anyone on the earth as "Father" then they should not call Priests as Father or Pope as Holy Father!

No Catholic Tradition can abolish Catholic Bible Scripture at least, if they believe their Canon is correct.

 

Nate,
Even your source doesn't explain the etymology for Preist coming from Presbyteros as Priests existed even earlier than Presbyteros.
If the two words are the same, why Bible says " Priests and Elders of the people took counsel"?

So, here again, are you putting more value in any dictionaly based on corrupted Tradition than Bible?

It will be ridiculous if anyone still claim that Priests are the same as Elders or Presbyteros.


your source

The Heb. kohen, Gr. hierus, Lat. sacerdos, always denote one who offers
sacrifices. At first every man was his own priest, and presented his own
sacrifices before God. Afterwards that office devolved on the head of the
family, as in the cases of Noah (Gen. 8:20), Abraham (12:7; 13:4), Isaac
(26:25), Jacob (31:54), and Job (Job 1:5). The name first occurs as applied to
Melchizedek (Gen. 14:18). Under the Levitical arrangements the office of the
priesthood was limited to the tribe of Levi, and to only one family of that
tribe, the family of Aaron. Certain laws respecting the qualifications of
priests are given in Lev. 21:16-23. There are ordinances also regarding the
priests' dress (Ex. 28:40-43) and the manner of their consecration to the
office (29:1-37). Their duties were manifold (Ex. 27:20, 21; 29:38-44; Lev.
6:12; 10:11; 24:8; Num. 10:1-10; Deut. 17:8-13; 33:10; Mal. 2:7).

 

But most are litirugical and heirarchy just as the RCC and Orthodox Churches are. You cannot prove that their was a Church such as a Baptist or Brethern or Assembly of God from the 5th Century. Many of those churches you list fell into the Oriental Orthodox heresy previously mentioned.
[/QB]</font>[/QUOTE]YOu are judging them as Heretics without knowing them.

 

Nate,

1st of all, I'm glad to see that the "Comedy Central" number of *supposed* "protestant denominations" is shrinking. It used to be 30,000, then 20,000 and now its down to 3,000. Just keep getting lower and lower and lower and lower still and someday we wont have to correct such "looney tunes" nonsense as we have to continually correct.

Yes, they do. Some see things a bit differently,(as God told us to expect) and some emphasise some things that others dont.(as God told us to expect).

But they are all turning to Gods only unchanging truth standard, His scriptures. And its for that reason that a lost person can visit any of them and hear the true gospel...unlike a Catholic Mass...and not be fed a poisonious mix of paganism, superstition, hocus-pocus magic, and wicked false teaching.

I regularly...either in person, radio, tv, or newsletters and magazines...feed on good solid teaching and preaching by calvinists, arminians, pentecostals, Church of Christers, 7th Day Adventists, Charismatics, and many others.

And I am blessed, edified and strenghthened by all of them.

Praise God for the scriptures and His saving gospel!

To the scriptures alone, with the Holy Spirit as your guide. There is no other way to grow in the christian life and witness.

Mike

[ April 29, 2006, 04:57 AM: Message edited by: D28guy ]

 

ReligiousTolerance.org cites the number at around 1000 "faith groups" within North American Christianity. Now part of where the exaggerated number of "20,000" or "33,000" comes from is that even within a given denomention, there are sometimes branches teaching different things. There are Baptist. Southern Baptists. American Baptists. National Baptists. Independant Baptists. etc...

If there is no authority higher than one's one honest interpretation, then there are as many different christain bible truths as there are bible Christians.

One thing the Catholics/Orthodox have over protestant christianity is a truely definitive set of teachings. You believe this, or youre not Catholic/Orthodox. Now, to be fair, there are professions of faith and creeds generally accepted by many baptists or methodists or lutherans, etc. But they often only deal with what those branches deem are the "essentials" or "fundamentals"...

 

What about the RCC and all those Catholic that discovered the massive errors "inclusion of paganism" etc within the RCC and began to Protest!!

Why do and did they not all just "agree to dump paganism"??

They could then be "one" instead of fractured!!

in Christ,

Bob

 

If the RCC HAD wanted to stop from splintering and fracturing - time after time after time -- it could have simply accepted the prayerful request that it give up paganism and give up holding to the "traditions of man so as to invalidate God's Word".

Imagine if the RCC had learned this lesson first encountered by the ONE True Church of God started at Sinai and yet later the RCC runs into the very same brick wall!

In Christ,

Bob

 

Often Catholic criticize the branches of so many denominations within Protestants group. Indeed such denominations are wrong according to the teachings of 1 Corinthians 1:11-17
However, it is better than Human Opressed and Controlled Hierarchy System of the church which is not found in Bible. We can see the Church of Jerusalem had no control over Church of Antioch when Antioch dispatch the apostles (Acts 13). They held a conference when there were some ambiguous understanding about the Law. We notice Paul preached even to Yugoslavia or intended to go to Spain as well. Nobody had the control over Paul except Holy Spirit. Such freedom could be enjoyed by all the believers all the time.
Denominations are wrong, but are tolerated for awhile because True believers suffered a lot during the Mono-Hierarchy system of Roman Catholic which tortured and killed millions of believers. 3,000 or 30,000 denominations have never killed the Christians as many as Roman Catholics tortured and killed, and I can safely expect none of the Protestant denominations will kill such as Roman Catholic did, even in the future.
Truths are expressed and preached thru the diversity, even though there have been some disagreements among them all the time, which is a pity.

1 Cor 1:12-13
12 Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ. 13 Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul?

 

no... but they can give an accurate and true interpretation... being fallible doesn't mean to be mistaken in every respect..... </font>[/QUOTE]But that plainly doesn't happen: just look at the disputes on this board alone about the nature and effect of baptism, eschatology, soteriology, ecclesiology etc, all involving individuals who have the Holy Spirit and the Bible and yet can agree on precious little; that fact demonstrates I'm afraid that the idea of individualistic inspiration and interpretation doesn't hold any water.

Again, same question to you as to Mike: what have I said that makes you think I'm referring solely to the Roman Church? Why all this obsession with 'The Italian Mission'? </font>[/QUOTE]just as an fyi... its not that I necessarily am saying that you are an RC, when I refer to their arguments, if they apply to you, fine, if not that is fine too... however their arguments for the elevation of tradition to being superior to Scripture (though they may say they hold them to be equal, in practice this never works) are often the same types of arguments used by the RC.... so if the shoe fits... if not, don't put it on...

secondly, the fact that there are disagreements does not mean that the Scriptures themselves are insufficient or that tradition (in the sense used by the East and RC) must be the final arbiter... that is, just because people disagree about what the truth is, it does not follow that the truth itself cannot be found....

after all, the "traditions" disagree strongly amongst themselves on all sorts of issues.... the only lock step conformity I have ever seen in an ecclesiastical body is the JW's.... and this is because of their habit of disfellowshipping anyone dissenting... of course when the penalties for dissension were far more severe, there seemed to be much greater agreement within the traditions

I realize that sola scriptura creates a bit of a crisis for those seeking epistemological certainty (in all the wrong places)... it's easy just to say "well.. I believe x, y and z because my church teaches x, y and z and since my church is the true church, the one true tradition, whatever they teach is right, so thats why I believe it..." and thats it... you are done... no worries, no hard work required by you to really search the Scriptures yourself to test their teaching by the Scriptural standard itself because you have no such standard... your standard is the church... no need to imitate the noble Bereans.... you would have thought that Paul would have commended the Bereans for having it right by commending them for just taking his word for it, if the "tradition only" view was right....

blessings,
Ken

 

Matt your position is illogical and indefensible.
1. Private interpretation is not permitted. Correct.
Then why does the Catholic Church practice it. That is what the verse means. Any organization that claims a private interpretation for itself is wrong. </font>[/QUOTE]Er...it doesn't mean that. I'm not quite sure why this isn't blindingly obvious to you but here goes: 'private' means 'personal, individual', as opposed to 'public, collective, corporate' Thus the Catholic Church cannot be guilty of 'private interpretation' since its interpretation is both public, collective and corporate. That is even more true when you consider the mind of the whole historic Church. Thus we can see that the verse condemns individual interpretation of Scripture ie: one man and his Bible alone and, by implication commends corporate interpretation by the whole Church which is, as others have pointed out, the "pillar and foundation of the Truth".

Mike, yes I know we all have the Holy Spirit, but we are also all fallibel individuals, fallen men and women whose interpretations, however guided by the Holy Spirit they may be, are therefore bound to be as fallible and fallen as we are. This is borne out by the fact that all of us as individual Christians come up with different and contradictory interpretations of the same Scriptures, with the same Holy Spirit dwelling within us. Therefore, assisting us on an individual basis clearly cannot be the way the Holy Spirit works in guiding us into "all Truth".

Ken, thanks for taking the trouble to understand a bit of where I'm coming from. I think it's fair to say that Catholics are far from alone in their adherence to Church Tradition: you also have the Orthodox, the Anglicans (where my sympathies largely lie, for the record), the Lutherans, the Methodists and to a degree Presbyterians too; all of these major denominations who between them comprise the vast majority of Christians on the planet, give some kind of a role to Church Tradition. It's just that I tend to get a bit irritated when, in a discussion on sola Scriptura and Tradition, some people seem to home in on, in a slightly obsessive way, just the Catholics while ignoring these other major denominations.

 

Still, any group is a collection of individuals, and the only ones whose interpretations are based on a single individual are the sects and cults. What you're talking about, we call "esoteric". The [much counter-attacked, now] "Baptist" or independant practice was not made up by any single man, but by truths that a variety of people/groups over the centuries had gleaned from scripture. The large institutional Churches were still just as human and fallible as any other group. So rejecting "private interpretation" in that negative sense does not mean we have to put aside whatever we think we read in scripture, and pick a group to interpret for us, and which one? Let's choose the oldest. (And Dahlen's thread on that shows that many of its practices were not solidifies until the second millennium, after a battle with iconoclasm had subsided). No, that turns out to be just another one of "all the contradictory interpretations", and there are others that handle the scriptures better. Anyone who consults any study aids, teaching, etc. in helping him understand the scriptures is consulting the corporate witness. There are certain essentials which all of those regarded as orthodox agree on. the rest are side issues that some make too much of an issue of.

 

Here is a study on the number of so-called Protestant denominations:

http://www.ntrmin.org/30000denominations.htm

http://www.ntrmin.org/30000denominationsrevisited.htm

Here is some idea of the same thing within Roman Catholicism:

http://www.ntrmin.org/RCDivisions.htm

http://www.ntrmin.org/rcchallenge.htm

 

And I hate to deal with this while joining this forum so late but I would like to dispell a popular notion. In Nate's opening post he wrote:

This idea comes from taking apart the term 'Laodicea'. Lao meaning the common people, or laity. And then the reach being 'dicea' meaning the diocese. That is total nonsense.

My Bible says that the name of the city came from the woman in Greek mythology named Laodice, said to be the daughter of Hercules. I understand that this was also the name of the ruler's wife, so he named the city after her.

http://www.ourfatherlutheran.net/biblehomelands/sevenchurches/laodicea/laodictxt.htm

And the term 'diocese' came from the name of Diocletian the Roman Emperor who ruled from A. D. 284 - 305 long after the city of Laodicia was named. He set up certain districts that later were called dioceses after his name.

"Another of Diocletian's reforms was to break up the old Roman provinces into smaller ones. Several of these provinces together made up a new division if territory called a diocese."

http://users2.ev1.net/~legionary/mainevent/coins/Diocletian.html

I am a deacon at my church, and a fellow that was checking out our church when we were just starting out protested against our congregational rule form of government based on this false notion. So I researched the name and he was wrong on all counts.

Oh, and BTW:

http://www.graceonlinelibrary.org/articles/full.asp?id=13|18|259

http://www.carm.org/catholic/biblesufficient.htm

 

Matt,

Of course, Nobody is denying that. I like to put it much simpler than that and just say that "none of us have perfect hearing", which none of us do.

That is why it is essential, imperitive, exceedingly essential that we all heed Gods clear and imperitive command to turn to the same unchanging truth standard, the scriptures, as our only truth standard, and hold everyone...including church hierarchies...accountable to the test.

By doing that we have Gods very effective "checks and balances" system in place.

The arminians hold the calvinists accountable to the scriptures, and by doing so serve to keep them from becoming too extreme.

The calvinists hold the arminians accountable to the scriptures, and by doing so serve to keep them from becoming too extreme.

The pentecostals hold the fundamentalists accountable to the scriptures, and by doing so serve to keep them from becoming too extreme.

The fundamentalists hold the pentecostals accountable to the scriptures, and by doing so serve to keep them from becoming too extreme.

I could go on and on.

When we discard Gods way for mans(actually Satans) way, we see precisely what is going on in the Catholic cult-world, as one example.

2000 years of paganism multiplying exponentially and unchecked for century after century. Idolatry leading to more paganism, leading to overflowing blasphemies leading to ever increasing amounts of heretical and devilish lies and false teaching.

It is IMPERATIVE, it CANT be emphasised enough. WE MUST heed Almighty Gods clear call to the divine truth we refer to as "sola scriptura".

The result of forsaking it is plain to see, by simply observing what happens when Gods command in this area is rejected...

David Koresh
Jehovahs Witnesses
Jim Jones
Catholicism
Mormonism

In all these groups error runs unchecked because its victims are commanded to never doubt what the organisation tells them is true.

No we dont.

Many many many times millions upon millions of believers come to the same convictions.

Not only is it the way, it is so very important that it literally can not be over emphasised.

Its importance is almost beyond the ability of human words to effectivily convey.

So much of the time it is the difference between heaven and hell.

God bless,

Mike

 

Isn't that the truth!
DHK

 

This thread is now well over the 20 page limit. Therefore, I am closing it and will start a new part two thread.

For the continuation thread go here:

Sola Scripture? Part Two