Well, Bible does proclaim that Bible is God breathed.. So the question is not in the authority of Bible. The question is, are there some other authorities also? But for me Bible is clear that Bible itself is the supreme authority. Traditions are not wrong. But it cannot contradict with Word of God. Forming a tradition not supported by Bible is not good..You know...
The irony of Sola Scriptura is that it's NOT scriptural
Righteousness by Faith ( The case for sola scriptura --the Bible and the Bible Alone)
- Thread starter Man-ofGod
- Start date
You know...
The irony of Sola Scriptura is that it's NOT scriptural
Sola scriptura was a response to Romes idea and assertions that her man made traditions had more weight or had a better authority than scripture.
Despite two facts. The nature of man . That by wisdom knew not (nor cannot) know God and that in and of himself and by himself he has no 'compass' and is as prone to error left alone as he has from the moment Eve SAW the tree was good to eat and reasoned that it would make her wise.
and that the scriptures clearly state that " ALL scripture is inspired by God and is good for correction ,reproof and instruction in righteousness........"
Now she ahs made herself infallible she can not be corrected or reproved or instructed in righteousness .As it was also found out at the reformation.
The truth is that if all scripture was inspired by the Holy Spirit of God . Then the same Holy Spirit is needed and by the same measure to understand what is written. As it should be understood.
Thus you have the Body of truth .or the letter or the Bible .
and the Spirit of truth .
If a mans words are neither heard or understood unless that man gives his breath or life to those words he mouths .How much less is God heard or understood unless they are 'quickened' by the Holy Spirit to the mind and spirit of a man?
According to what faith "IS" Hebrews. Then ALL men have faith ."For God has given to every man a measure of faith to profit with all"
But to have faith IN God you must not only hear the Word of God but also understand it .
But in principle as to what faith IS then it is the SAME faith and worketh as it does whenever it is exercised .You do not have to get faith you already have a measure of faith . But now if you understand what God is saying your faith is now in God.
For if your faith is in that which is seen and "passeth away" and not in the things that are not seen and" are eternal" then your hope will die with you . and your faith turn to ashes .
But if your faith is in God you will never be ashamed or confounded and not only will you have or do have a sure and certain hope .But your faith in God will have its reward .
in Christ
gerald
Interesting read...
Although a question, more on consistency of a claim/proposal:
The first line: ' Sola scriptura was a response to Romes idea and assertions that her man made traditions had more weight or had a better authority than scripture."
Question: How you reconcile the "claim" of "more weight" or "better authority " WHEN the Catholic Church belief is that the Bible is Inerrant ?
I mean, if one claims a teaching to be inerrant, what can replace it that have "more weight" or "better authority"....?
I would say: similar to Matthew 6:24: what is more important remains, but loyalty may differ... but this is applicable to anyone, or any Church...
Matthew 6:24New King James Version (NKJV)
You Cannot Serve God and Riches
24 “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.
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They may so claim it.
But what said Jesus ?
"by your traditions ye have made the Word of God of none effect"
I was raised in the Church of England . That too has many similar traditions . I was a choir boy and alter boy and went to church every Sunday from about 5 years old till I was 15. I have been to a few services since conversion.
A mans loyalty should be first to God .
Jonathan loved David as his own soul. But his loyalty to his father of the flesh brought him to an early death.
As I said before .The same errors she taught and claimed to be true but were proved to be so false at the reformation she still teaches .
At some point you have to part company with her IF you wish to be made conformable to Christ .
This is not the place to go into her errors .Nor I wonder is it profitable to do so .As they can be seen and understood to be what they are by any life and preaching of the reformers and of course the fruit of each .
Thus while claiming their authority etc they like others in scripture "feared God but served their own gods" or in another with their lips they praise me but their hearts are far from me"
I leave it to you to judge .
in Christ
gerald
Hello everyone,
The Bible is God's special Revelation to mankind about who God is and who we are in relationship to Him. I was born and raised in a Roman Catholic family and society before what has come to be known in Quebec Canada as the quiet revolution. Back in those days, although every one considered himself or herself a Christian, since they felt they belonged to the Christian Church of Rome, no one I knew ever read the Bible.
What a shock when I opened it for the first time and discovered that the text of the Bible actually said that Jesus had brothers and sisters, that Jesus Christ was the last priest there ever was, and that His sacrifice was offered once and for all on the cross so that if we believe we have life. This was in direct conflict with what I had leared throug my Roman Catholic upbringing.
So, when we say "Scripture alone" along with Luther, it does not mean that we reject any form of knowledge from other sources, for all truth is God's truth, and so we can learn a lot from all kinds of sources. But what it does mean is that we will not allow any body of knowledge to elevate itself above what the Word of God teaches on matters of faith and conduct, or about any subject it deals with directly or indirectly.
In Christ...
The Bible is God's special Revelation to mankind about who God is and who we are in relationship to Him. I was born and raised in a Roman Catholic family and society before what has come to be known in Quebec Canada as the quiet revolution. Back in those days, although every one considered himself or herself a Christian, since they felt they belonged to the Christian Church of Rome, no one I knew ever read the Bible.
What a shock when I opened it for the first time and discovered that the text of the Bible actually said that Jesus had brothers and sisters, that Jesus Christ was the last priest there ever was, and that His sacrifice was offered once and for all on the cross so that if we believe we have life. This was in direct conflict with what I had leared throug my Roman Catholic upbringing.
So, when we say "Scripture alone" along with Luther, it does not mean that we reject any form of knowledge from other sources, for all truth is God's truth, and so we can learn a lot from all kinds of sources. But what it does mean is that we will not allow any body of knowledge to elevate itself above what the Word of God teaches on matters of faith and conduct, or about any subject it deals with directly or indirectly.
In Christ...
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Thanks for the reply/explanation.
Sola Scriptura teaches us Sola Gratia.
Christians shares the same Sola Gratia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sola_gratia#Recent_activity
Recent activity[edit]
In November 1999, the Lutheran World Federation and the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity issued the "Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification" that said, "By grace alone, in faith in Christ's saving work and not because of any merit on our part, we are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit, who renews our hearts while equipping us and calling us to good works."[2]
On July 18, 2006, delegates to the World Methodist Conference voted unanimously to adopt the declaration. The Methodists' resolution said the 1999 agreement "expresses a far-reaching consensus in regard to the theological controversy which was a major cause of the split in Western churches in the 16th century" over salvation by grace alone or by grace and good works.
Some conservative Protestants still believe the differences between their views and those of the Catholics remain substantial, however. They insist that this agreement does not fully reconcile the differences between the Reformist and Roman Catholic viewpoints on this subject.[3]
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Sola scriptura or scripture alone covers very different grounds than grace alone.
and you cannot or should not replace the one with the other .
The fact that Rome still p[laces her traditions and man made teachings over and above scripture means that the principle expounded by the reformers still stands as of course principles always do .
Even grace these days has now to be clarified .For what is preached as grace even in 'protestant churches is more of a disgrace than the grace of God.
The unity of all true BORN children of God for instance . Is not in word only but in Spirit also and deed.
it does not come for instance by all performing the same rituals or saying the same things all at the same time .That is no different from Islam.
It comes first by a transformation of the heart not a renewal of it . For Jesus did not come to make bad men good but dead men live.
I am glad to say that the truth is not democratic and is neither upheld ,undermined or established by how many people 'vote' for it .
Nor is it a tyrant that will ,impose itself unjustly on the will or heart and demands blind obedience .As many religionists of all sorts demand .
But a man is free inso much as he is free in the limitations of the flesh .
God calls men and women to repentance their response or reactions determines what happens next or their eternal future.
One can debate about which church and what denomination. Some count one or theirs as THE church and outside their church there is no salvation.
Others count all churches as parts of THE church .
The FACT is that there is but ONE church which is HIS body ;Christ being the head . If there is one church then there is only one door .
We reject of course any one trying to sneak in by the back door as it were or window or some other way as a thief.
In Rev 2 . Jesus is says he is OUTSIDE the church knocking on the door .
When you consider that after the resurrection no door locked or not was a problem to him. So if He is outside His church when clearly the church thinks he is inside and is knocking and will not or cannot or should not come in . Then that knocking is to the whole church to repent .
It is a call for all who consider themselves Christians to consider their ways and consider why and indeed who is knocking.?
While the call is to all .The promise however is to the individuals who "have ears to hear" to THEM will I and the Father come and sup with or have fellowship with.
For even as john 3:16 is a call to the whole world to repent .The promise is to those who do and believe .
So then to the church which is His.
Rome still teaches what she taught before and during the reformation and was proved to be so false and against scriptures teaching.
She might argue that that proves she is the true church for she has not changed .
The Bible says of one "I gave you time to repent but ye did not........."
"But we have this confidence God knows who are His "
It behoves one and all who ARE his to consider that judgement begins at the house of God ." if then the righteous are scarcely saved where will the sinner and the ungodly be"?
The church does not know God .
Over much.
Perhaps more as "little children who know the father and their sins are forgiven" 1John.
But less in whom" the word of God dwelleth in your richly and ye have overcome the wicked one " ?
and what of them "who know Him who is from the beginning"?
He who was and is from the beginning , we have heard of . But like Job have not yet seen or know .
The times that are coming and now are will be such that it is vital we know Him of whom we have heard and we wil be able to confess like JOb
"I have heard of thee but now mine eyes seeth thee.............................I repent in dust and ashes ..."
in Christ
gerald
you believe in Sola Gratia? and maybe can you explain a bit what is Sola Gratia for clarity?
In matters of sound doctrine "....reproof and correction and instruction in righteousness" Then the scriptures are the final authority . and God . Not man or long held traditions .
Having said that it should also be understood that if you have but the Word of God your dry up.
If you have but the Spirit of God you blow up.
It needs must that you have the Word of God and the Spirit of God and you grow up.
Grace alone ? What sayeth then the scriptures?
Even as it is written we are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ . Not of works lest any man should boast "
Thus it is Grace alone by which a man is saved that is to say BORN again . Not of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man nor of blood but of God .
From experience and observation anything that comes out of the mouth of Rome needs so much salt added to it that it becomes unpalatable.
Far better to go to the source of our hope .
I once went to the source of one of the great rivers of France which you can find and visit just south of the Ardeche region. You can drink your fill there and it is as clear and pure and sweet as any man could wish for . Yet within a few hundred yards men have thrown their rubbish in it and walked in it and further down they have polluted it as to make it unworthy of any man to drink from it.
Men are more willing to go to "the fathers " of antiquity rather than if you will the fathers of scripture . Men are more willing to go to Augustine than they are to Paul say . others will think of some more highly than they should of men and cloak them with lies so much they are not the same people as portrayed in scripture.
Others will prefer the graven images of men .Rather than he who was the express image of the invisible God.
All in all we are in a reverse reformation . and people are no longer willing to endure sound doctrine but having itching ears gather to themselves
teachers after their own hearts who teach damnable heresies and doctrines of devils. who are seduced into thinking by oen way or another that their good works will save them. It never will or does or ever has. They are like Caine and their seed is of old .
If they do not repent they are predestined to destruction damnation and hell.
As all men are who do not do so .
For by nature we are children of disobedience or were . More children of darkness than the light .
But God created us for the light and the truth. Thus when the truth shall come and the light that enlightens every man that cometh into the world they love darkness more than the light and their end is just .
For it was not heaven that wa sin darkness but the earth .
and it was not God who was in darkness but man .
It was therefore of God and BY HIM alone that" they who sat in darkness saw a great light"
Here in is love .Not that we loved God but that God loved us and ........."
Who then dare say we deserve or van effect some sort of merit for Gods love or indeed salvation?
How indeed can the dead save themselves? or live? What work can they do that can demand of God "man has the right to life"?
For they are dead.
Then it is by grace alone and of God s own will .That said "let there be light "
For the road to calvry started with those few words.
It was mans SIN and his sin alone is all he has . That without God leads him to hell .
For every seed is predestined to bring forth fruit after its own kind for it will not bring forth another .
We are born in sin and shapen in iniquity .Born of a corruptible seed that is of the first Adam.
ALL men therefore are predestined to bring forth corruption unto death.
What work then can you do to save yourself?
"can a leopard change its spots?" or the crooked become straight?
By the law all men are condemned . Being a Jew . Or without the law being a gentile .Romans .
What then can you plea?
Your past? You are of Adam .
your present ? you are found guilty.
Your future ? you have none save what the just judge before whom you face will give you.
Then it is not of works .
You can only plea what is in the book and the judge will only accept what is in the book .
His name is Jesus .
What work could Adam and Eve or did plead to save them?
They had none nor did .
It was God and God alone that gave them a covering first fro their nakedness and then a promise of a saviour .
Was that not why Abels offering God had respect for ?
For in offering a sacrificed lamb he spoke the truth as to his sin .The righteousness of God and put his faith in the promise .
Caine on the other hand by his offering offered up that which God had already cursed the fruit of the field .
and by his offering denied his sin and sought to establish his own righteousness and thus Gods and sought his own glory and not Gods .
Here then is the seed and root of the false and the truth of 'religion' if you will.
and it was not Abel that rose up and slew Caine .It was Caine that rose up and slew Abel .So it was and so it is now and will be till Jesus comes.
It is Grace alone because that glorifies God and God alone .
In Christ
gerald
Amen. I agree.
Indeed, "reading alone" : ).... Paul’s dried me up before that I gave up on “theology”/”religion”…
....but after “Grace Alone” ... reading Paul’s is a sweet to read/revelation…
With St. Augustine…. on his “On Grace and Freewill”
It’s my turn to say “I leave it to you to judge” as well : )
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1510.htm