Vicar of Jesus Christ?

[DHK]

4) The “Word of God” is a phrase which isn’t limited to Scripture. It is defined as “the manifestation of the mind and will of God.” The Gospel itself (the Good News of Christ) is also rightly referred to as the “Word of God.” Most profoundly, Christ is the “Word” become flesh. Scripture is also the “Word of God.” So any Christian would say that “the Word” is his authority. You don’t have a corner on that market, either.

Perhaps we do theologically. One cannot simply make up things as they go along.
1. The manifestation of the mind and will of God are given to us in the 66 books of the Bible.
2. The gospel is defined for us in the Word of God, the 66 books of the Bible. Check 1Cor.15:1-4.
3. Yes, Christ the Word is identified for us in Scripture and only in Scripture. (John 1:1-18)
4. Scripture is a synonym for the Word of God, as is Bible. If you want some others read Psalm 119 which has 176 verses, every verse except one speaks about the Word of God.

• I say that my authority is Christ.

• Christ is found only in the Scriptures. If he isn't the Christ of the Scriptures (Bible), He isn't Christ. Our authority is Christ, not "The Church."

• Before Christ’s Ascension, He conferred upon men His divine authority.

  The divine authority was to preach the gospel. That authority that the apostles had ceased when they ceased, or died. It was never passed on.

• He granted them the Keys to the Kingdom.

• The "keys to the kingdom" is the power to grant entrance into the kingdom of God which every believer has through preaching the gospel. IOW, I have those keys to simply because I tell others the gospel that can save.

• He gave them the authority to bind and loose.

• "Binding and loosing" is a term that is used in business meetings, which Jesus was speaking about in Matthew 18, when disciplining a member of a local church. That is all that it is referring to. Every local church must make those decisions. It is not a sole apostolic power, but the power of all biblical local churches.

• He granted them the authority to forgive and retain sin.

  You misunderstand this verse.
• 1. Only God can forgive sins--not the apostles, not any man; only God (Mark 2:7).
• 2. The apostles had no power to forgive sins, but their God-given message, the gospel would forgive all the sins of those that believed. Only in that way would sins be forgiven.
• Today, believers have the same power--forgiveness of sins comes through the gospel.

• He promised them the Holy Spirit who’d lead them into all truth.

• This verse referred to the writing of Scripture. He would bring to remembrance the things that he had taught them ("all truth") so that what they wrote would be infallible and without error.

• He instructed them to teach all that He commanded.

• This command is applicable to every believer today. The nature of his commands are given in the Word of God. That is all that we need to know about God.

• He never said a word about them recording all that was necessary to be known on paper and compiling the teachings to serve as the “sole” authority for all matters of faith and “practice.”

  He did to John, and to many others. Paul was commanded by the Lord to write the epistles he wrote. He wrote (he says) "by the commandment of the Lord."
• Jesus Christ Himself came to John while he was on the isle of Patmos, and said:
• Revelation 1:11 Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and, What thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia; unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea.
  

• On Pentecost the Descent of the Holy Spirit which was promised by Christ occurred.

• The fulfillment of scriptura or an evidence of sola scriptura.
  
  

• Over time, growing like an acorn grows into an oak, we can trace this early Church through history.

• Yes we can. There are two strands of history. There is the strand of history that shows the corrupt line of the RCC originating from the fourth century with Constantine and all of its paganism mingled with the blood of the martyrs of true believers such as Albigenses, Waldenses, Cathari, Donatists, etc. Acts of genocide continued to be committed by the RCC throughout their bloodied past.
• There is the strand of "churches" which stood outside of corruption, outside of the RCC and denominationalism, and stayed true to the Word of God. Though less known and less popular they are still there, for God never leaves himself without a witness.
  

• We have the record of St. Paul exhorting us to hold fast to the traditions which are passed on, whether by word of mouth or by letter.

• Look in other translations. The word "traditions" simply refer to the Word of God, the unspoken Word that had not been printed or rather written yet. You find the word in the epistles to the Thessalonians. These books were written ca. 55 A.D. Both the Cross and Pentecost were ca. 30 A.D. According to the definition of "tradition" in the Catholic Encyclopedia what kind of "tradition" could the "church" have time to form in the space of about 25 years. That is not enough time. Such traditions, according to the RCC encyclopedia, take centuries, not just 25 years.
• The word means "teaching." It refers to the Word of God that Paul taught Timothy.

• We read of the the communion which existed among those early Christians and within which they were dedicated to “teaching, fellowship, breaking of the bread and prayers.”

• Our churches follow the same pattern. But this has nothing to do with transubstantiation.
  
  

• We see the Apostles convene in Acts 15 to decide a matter of great importance to that early community.

  And the leaders of our church do the same thing.

• We see there an exercise of a binding authority which, against all apparent Scriptural witness, decided that Gentile converts are NOT bound to circumcision. In the mind of the Jew of the day, such a decision (which was expressed in terms which indicated the Holy Spirit’s safeguarding of the Apostles’ decision) would have sounded like anything but “Sola Scriptura.”

  If you read the account you have the witness of those involved. The apostles as well as others came together to consider the matter. There was nothing to discuss. They already knew the answer. It simply had to be made public for the legalistic Judaizers. However, it wasn't the Apostles that made the decision. It was James, the pastor of the church.
• Acts 15:13 And after they had held their peace, James answered, saying, Men and brethren, hearken unto me:
  
• Acts 15:19 Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to God:
  
• It was the decision of James, the pastor of the church in Jerusalem.

• This history continues unbroken over the centuries and reaches us today according to the safeguarding of the Holy Spirit. For Jesus established a Church. And, to borrow from a Biblical phrase, what God hath joined together, no man shall put asunder… including His Church.

This is where you are absolutely wrong, have no evidence and are now resorting back to RCC propaganda.
What an absurdity to say that the RCC is "according to the safeguarding of the Holy Spirit."
It has nothing to do with the Holy Spirit. Some of the most wicked men that ever lived have taken that office and have been a disgrace to humanity let alone the RCC. The Holy Spirit does not represent such abominations. Such ungodly organizations hardly can be called "unbroken over the centuries." That is just not true. How about reading the biography of Innocent III?

You have said this around 797 times. This is, however, exactly what Martin Luther believed. It’s what Oneness Pentecostals believe. It’s what a bunch of people who don’t agree with you would state as their justification for holding to their mistaken views. It’s what John Calvin believed. So let me respond in a way I’ve not yet tried:

Well I am not a Lutheran and certainly am not Oneness who believe that tongues are necessary for salvation and don't believe in the trinity. So don't associate me with that cult. If you want to go that direction you believe your infants can have their sins washed away with water. So do the Hindus in India. That is why they immerse themselves in the polluted waters of the Ganges River once a year. Their Hindu theology is not much different than yours.

 

[DHK]

[*]

If you were mistaken about some important doctrine, how would you know
[*]

There is a command.
[*]2 Timothy 2:15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

[*]And Jesus said:
[*]Matthew 22:29 Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God.
--We are commanded to study the Scriptures by Paul, and we are told we are in error if we do not know the Scriptures, by Christ Himself. I know I am right on all the important doctrines because of over 40 years of study and leadership in various capacities. The Lord has led me into truth. The Bible does not contradict itself, not does
God contradict himself.

[*]How do you differentiate between human opinion and divinely revealed truth?

God has stated absolute truth that is very obvious in his word. There is no question about the new birth. You must be born again. There is no question about how one must be born again. The RCC's "opinion" of that passage is wrong and heretical, and like a cult confines its meaning to the Catholics alone.

[*]Are you infallibly sure that 1 Peter 3:21 is not true?

Of course it is true. What part of the Bible is not true. I accept all the Bible.
The question is not whether or not it is true, but rather what does the verse mean? Many stumble on this verse because they do not understand what it means. They simply look at it, give a cursory reading and go on.. Some scriptures deserve a lot more attention than others.

[*]Are you infallibly sure that you are right and that BobRyan is wrong?

No one on this board or anywhere else for that fact, is infallible. No one will know everything until we get to heaven, and even then God alone is omniscient.
Bob Ryan is an SDA. We differ, and I know where we differ. Sometimes those differences come up and we debate them.

How do you explain the fact that neither you nor BobRyan can bind each other’s conscience when it comes to doctrine? If you both claim that the Bible’s the authority, yet you disagree with each other, how do you settle things?

I am not sure what you mean by "binding one another's conscience." That phrase doesn't make sense to me.
It is evident that two people of two different persuasions are not going to agree. If I agreed with him I would join the SDA's but that is not going to happen.
Baptists have always believed in: Religious freedom; religious tolerance; and soul liberty. The RCC has not always believed in these concepts and in fact, have persecuted others denying them these basic rights.
IOW, Bob is entitled to believe what he wants. I (unlike the RCC of the past) am not going to force him to believe what I believe. I will allow the Holy Spirit to work in his life.

King David saw to it that a man was killed so that he could have that man’s wife.

So that makes it right? Is that a pretext for all Catholics to kill to get their wives? Is this how you justify the murders of both the Crusades and the Inquisitions? Amazing!

Yet the Messiah came from the line David. So it is that God may achieve His Will despite the sins of men.

Really, this is warped thinking. Rom.3:23 teaches that "all have sinned." No one is excluded. But that doesn't mean that all have murdered. Nor does it justify the murders, killings, genocides, and barbarities of any specific group such as the RCC.

Further, any little faith community within which you participate is subject to the same problems which have plagued the Catholic Faith for all of these centuries. In other words, the presence of sin within an institution doesn’t disqualify it from being guided by the Holy Spirit any more than the presence of sins in an individual believer’s life prevent her from being sanctified in and through Christ and serving the Lord in various capacities.

I can hardly believe what I am reading--the justification of sins and horrible sins!!
The "small faith community" (and that is accurate) in which I live and participate does not have and never will have the same problems that have plagued the RCC.
From the past: Inquisitions and Crusades, and all that may be recorded in Foxe's Book of Martyr's, to the more present public parade of pedophilia, child molestation, rape, homosexuality, etc.
First of all some of those sins are actual crimes and should immediately be reported to the police. We do that. The RCC hides it, passes the criminal off to another parish, etc.
Secondly, if the sin is a sin of grievous morality but not a crime according to the law of man, our Baptist churches treats it as a grievous sin. The pastor is removed from office and disqualified ever to be a pastor again. Those who have had affairs or have been divorced cannot be a pastor. The qualifications are high. He is one "who must be blameless."
But the RCC doesn't seem to care about this, and as you have done, have rationalized and demeaned sinned rather than having abhorred it.

You can do a lot of things with words. You can’t, however, make them mean things they don’t mean. The word “sole” comes from the Latin word solus. And it doesn’t mean “final.” The word sole means “alone” or “being the only one.”

I have given you the definition from different sources. It ends up to be the same thing.
What in the definition do you want to change? What do you disagree with? Do you honestly think that we believe the Bible is our only authority in matters of math and science? No, that is not what we believe or what the Reformers believed.

Even the ever so popular Wikipedia states:

Sola scriptura (Latin ablative, "by Scripture alone") is the Christian doctrine that the Bible is the supreme authority in all matters of doctrine and practice. Sola scriptura does not deny that other authorities govern Christian life and devotion, but sees them all as subordinate to and corrected by the written word of God.

"By scripture alone" that is, that the Bible is the supreme authority. Clear enough?

Usually people with whom a person disagrees do not provide evidence for their opponent’s position. You have done so here, however. All along I’ve been saying that the Bible does not teach Sola Scriptura and that instead it is an unjustified inference, a logical non sequitur, which people wrongly deduce from Scripture. It is, therefore, not revealed by God and the text you pasted demonstrates this fact quite nicely. Look at how the writer flatly admits that the Catholic argument against Sola Scriptura is true. The writer then transitions away from the realm of divine revelation and squarely into the realm of human linguistic and rational philosophy. It is right at that point that he loses infallibility. It is right at that point that he loses the ability to present a “binding teaching” of the faith. It is right there that he steps away from the safeguard of the Holy Spirit and into the realm of human error. This brief text quite nicely demonstrates exactly what I’ve been saying all along.

Nonsense. "He steps away from the safeguard of the Holy Spirit and into the realm of human error"?? How do you come to that conclusion? Do you even know what "the safeguard of the Holy Spirit" is?

You gave a good example of not providing evidence for yourself. A denial of a doctrine (sola scriptura) is a simple denial. It is rather childish:
"It is not true!" It is not true!" "It is not true!" etc.
Then you provide no evidence. You cannot tell why it is not true. However this time I have given you a number of scripture that shows why sola scriptura is true, not to mention the 450 times the Bible simply says, "Thus saith the Lord." which also is an evidence for sola scriptura.
So, just don't say "It isn't true," without any reason.

 

[DHK]

There are many posts which I feel I should answer as there are others who may still want to contribute. But this thread has reached 30 pages, a limit at which we usually close threads. I would suggest that if any should want some specific questions to be answered to start another thread on the same topic.