Can the Church Survive Without God's Word?

Can the church survive without God's word?

  • Yes.

    Votes: 17 43.6%
  • No.

    Votes: 22 56.4%

  • Total voters
    39

Dave-W

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"If English was good enough for St. Paul, it's good enough for me!"
We had a saying back in the day. Paul taught from the King James but sang from the NASB.

I was at a conference in 1975. Derek Prince made the statement as he prefrenced his address: "I will be reading from the King James Version, the bible Paul used." He was followed by Bob Mumford who quipped "I will be reading from the New American Standard, the bible Paul used."

So Charles Simpson comes up the next day and held up a scroll-wrapped parchment. "I will be reading from the version Paul used!"
 
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Mary Meg

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It's very misleading to say that the Bible is the product of the church as Peter Kreeft and others have argued. Many on this thread have picked up on this argument as well. It's misleading because...
For what it's worth, I've never read Peter Kreeft.
1. The Bible was written by chosen men who were inspired by the Holy Spirit. Men like Moses, Jeremiah, Paul, Matthew, and John.
Paul, Matthew, and John were not members of the Church?
The Church has no right to reject, add to, or amend Scripture.
Luther and other Reformers apparently thought it did. Calvin also seems to have agreed that it was permissible to toss out books the Church had been using for a millennium or so. (Strangely enough, it appears to me that the Catholics and Orthodox have a higher view of this than Protestants. I've heard several prominent Protestants, including, I think, R.C. Sproul, call the Bible "a fallible collection of infallible texts.")
3. The Church did not authorize the Bible, but recognized the Bible. The books we have in the canon are not God's word because the church authorized them.
I for one would never argue that "the Scriptures are God's Word because the Church recognized them as such." But because the Church recognized them as such (with the guidance of the Holy Spirit), they were included in the Bible, which, as a work of compilation, is a product of the Church.

When I say "the Church produced the Bible," I'm not referring to the Catholic Church or the Orthodox Church or any other church. I'm referring to the Church as an institution of Christ, and as the Body of Christ.
 
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FireDragon76

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It's very misleading to say that the Bible is the product of the church as Peter Kreeft and others have argued. Many on this thread have picked up on this argument as well. It's misleading because...

1. The Bible was written by chosen men who were inspired by the Holy Spirit. Men like Moses, Jeremiah, Paul, Matthew, and John. The Bible was written for the church, but the Bible was not produced by church councils meeting together and voting on proposed documents, amending documents, and debating what they ought to say. This is how the church produced things like the Nicene Creed, the Westminster Confession of Faith, or the rulings of the Council of Trent. But the Bible was not produced like this. God spoke to particular men who then wrote Scripture for the church. Many of these men even experienced great resistance from the church of their day (i.e. Moses and Jeremiah). If it were up to the church, these words would have certainly been amended!

2. The Church has no right to reject, add to, or amend Scripture. If the Bible is a product of the church, then the church would be able to add to it, amend it as needed, or take away from it. If the whole church were to get together and amend the Nicene Creed then this wouldn't, in theory, be a problem because the Nicene Creed is a product of the church. But even if the whole church were to get together and vote to amend some part of Scripture, it would have no right to do so. This is because the Bible is not a product of the church, but the word of God. As such, it cannot be amended.

3. The Church did not authorize the Bible, but recognized the Bible. The books we have in the canon are not God's word because the church authorized them. They do not receive their authority from the church. Rather, they have authority because they are from God! The church had no choice but to recognize them since they are God's word.

Of course, this is another place where Catholics and EOs really differ from Protestants. Catholics and EOs tend to believe that the church is more authoritative than God's word and that without the church, God's word would not have authority. They believe that they can add to God's word through publishing infallible rulings of councils which teach things outside of Scripture. And they say things like "the church wrote the Bible" or "the church produced the Bible."

But that process of "recognition" was not without debate. It's not like Christians just found the 66 books in the (typical) modern Protestant Bibles and said "Right, that's the Bible... obviously it's all inspired and authoritative", and just stuck them all together just so the British and Foreign Bible society could publish it centuries later in the "correct" way.
 
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FireDragon76

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For what it's worth, I've never read Peter Kreeft.

Paul, Matthew, and John were not members of the Church?


I think what he's trying to say is the Bible isn't merely authorized by religious institutions. It's not like we need the Pope or the Ecumenical Patriarch to tell us what books are uniquely authoritative and which aren't- that's frankly just an anti-intellectual approach to be told "(Holy) Father knows best".

In reality, Lutherans and Reformed Christians have an open canon (as @hedrick would point out also). It's just that certain modern developments in the 19th century tried to entrench their positions and make it sound like we don't.

Luther and other Reformers apparently thought it did. Calvin also seems to have agreed that it was permissible to toss out books the Church had been using for a millennium or so.

Puritan/Pietist Bible societies did that. In Germany and Britain until the 19th century it was illegal to publish a Bible without the Apocrypha.

Luther actually translated the apocryphal books into German later in his life, and included them in his German Bible. But in Lutheranism, they are not considered to be a basis for any dogmatic teaching. We can read them in church, however (Pastor read from the addition to Daniel on All Saints Day, and one Vespers service during Lent he included the Song of the Three Holy Youths). In fact the Protestant Apocrypha actually contains more books than what Rome includes in their canon.
 
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Shimokita

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Not a problem for me. The Cambridge circa 1900 King James is the perfect Word of God for our day. English is the world language and so it makes sense God would have preserved His Word in the world language of our day. I can even prove it.

Just check out the evidences in my blogger article here:

Love Branch: Evidences for the Word of God
I am amused. English has only been the lingua Franca for a relatively short while.
 
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FireDragon76

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Which Bible?

All Bibles, regardless of the version or canon, include sufficient information for a person to understand they are a sinner and Christ is their Savior who died for them to atone for their sins.
 
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_Dave_

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I take the view that "church" means the body of Christ and not a particular congregation in a building. Then if I understand Matthew 18:20 correctly, as long as there are two believers the church will exist.

By the same token, if 1 Peter 1:25 means what I think it means then God's word is preserved by those who have heard it preached; and it is not necessary for it to be saved in some book made out of paper.
 
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Mary Meg

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Not a problem for me. The Cambridge circa 1900 King James is the perfect Word of God for our day. English is the world language and so it makes sense God would have preserved His Word in the world language of our day. I can even prove it.
After all the trouble God and the Church (meaning Christians) have gone to, since the beginning, to translate the Bible into every language and tongue of mankind -- you think the English Bible is the only "perfect" one?

What about the translations of the Bible you suppose were "perfect" in the past? Are they not perfect anymore?
 
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Mary Meg

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Luther actually translated the apocryphal books into German later in his life, and included them in his German Bible. But in Lutheranism, they are not considered to be a basis for any dogmatic teaching.
Yes... but by excluding them from doctrine, he was excluding them from the canon of "Scripture" -- and I think he says as much, doesn't he? "Not Scripture, but still good to read"?
 
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FenderTL5

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I take the view that "church" means the body of Christ and not a particular congregation in a building. Then if I understand Matthew 18:20 correctly, as long as there are two believers the church will exist.

By the same token, if 1 Peter 1:25 means what I think it means then God's word is preserved by those who have heard it preached; and it is not necessary for it to be saved in some book made out of paper.
That's a new, post Reformation, understanding.
Prior to 1054~ there was only one Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. Everything else was Heterodox. That is why the schism between east and west was, and still is, so profound regardless of which side you land on.
 
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Tree of Life

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Paul, Matthew, and John were not members of the Church?

They were no ordinary members just like the prophets of old were no ordinary members of Israel. Paul calls them "the foundation".

Luther and other Reformers apparently thought it did. Calvin also seems to have agreed that it was permissible to toss out books the Church had been using for a millennium or so. (Strangely enough, it appears to me that the Catholics and Orthodox have a higher view of this than Protestants. I've heard several prominent Protestants, including, I think, R.C. Sproul, call the Bible "a fallible collection of infallible texts.")

The OT apocryphal books have always been disputed. Athanasius in his 367 Easter Letter (our first full list of the canon) does not include the apocryphal books in the canon.

I for one would never argue that "the Scriptures are God's Word because the Church recognized them as such." But because the Church recognized them as such (with the guidance of the Holy Spirit), they were included in the Bible, which, as a work of compilation, is a product of the Church.

Catholics would argue this.
 
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FenderTL5

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But that process of "recognition" was not without debate. It's not like Christians just found the 66 books in the (typical) modern Protestant Bibles and said "Right, that's the Bible... obviously it's all inspired and authoritative", and just stuck them all together just so the British and Foreign Bible society could publish it centuries later in the "correct" way.
Don't be silly, the Apostles had copies of the Cambridge circa 1900 King James Version, autographed by Jesus Himself ,at the merchandise table at the Ascension.
[/sarcasm]
 
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FireDragon76

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Yes... but by excluding them from doctrine, he was excluding them from the canon of "Scripture" -- and I think he says as much, doesn't he? "Not Scripture, but still good to read"?

I think this is a potential grey area and open to interpretation as to exactly what Luther means, given the wider context of Luther's writings.

Some Orthodox theologians would agree that these books are not sources of dogma. Rome's affirmation that they are equally canonical is singular and unique, and not undisputed in the early Church. The Catechism of St. Philaret of Moscow, a 19th century Orthodox theologian and catechist, also affirms the authority of the Hebrew Scriptures in the Old Testament above all others:

The Longer Catechism of The Orthodox, Catholic, Eastern Church • Pravoslavieto.com
 
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Mary Meg

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They were no ordinary members just like the prophets of old were no ordinary members of Israel. Paul calls them "the foundation".
So they're the foundation of the Church. They're even more so the Church than mere members.
The OT apocryphal books have always been disputed. Athanasius in his 367 Easter Letter (our first full list of the canon) does not include the apocryphal books in the canon.
That's not really what I'm talking about and not, I think, what Sproul was talking about.
Catholics would argue this.
Catholics argue that the (Catholic) Church was the institution of Christ. I'm not identifying that foundation. But Scripture does tell us that Christ founded the Church and that the Church is the Body of Christ. That's literally all I'm saying.
 
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ace of hearts

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Some in my other thread have begun to argue that the Bible is not strictly necessary. They said that if all the Bibles in the world were destroyed, the church would still survive. Could the church survive without God's word?

I think this question gets to the heart of the relationship between God's word and God's church. Catholics and EOs are wont to say: "Jesus didn't just leave us a Bible, he left us a church." They also want to say that the Bible and the church have an equal authority and even that the church wrote the Bible! In the Catholic and EO view, it sometimes seems to be the case that it's really the church that is most important, and the Bible is just a book that the church wrote.

But what would the church be without the word of God? Isn't it the word of God that creates and continually recreates the church? Isn't it the word of God that sustains the church? Isn't it the word of God that sanctifies the church and teaches the church?

Without the word of God, the church might still function in some traditional sense. It might go on to ordain bishops, sprinkle babies, lift up crackers to heaven and break them, etc. It might even have an unbroken line of ordination succession that can be traced back to the apostles! But without the word of God, the ministry of the church would not be able to help or save anybody. The church would become a dead institution that is utterly indistinguishable from the world.

Isn't this what happened to Israel in the time of Hosea? Though they were circumcised and had maintained certain Jewish traditions, they had become "Lo-Ammi" - not my people. Without God's word, we are not his people and he is not our God.
Bible eradication would be an incredible task these days.
 
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Tree of Life

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So they're the foundation of the Church. They're even more so the Church than mere members.

That's not what Paul says. Paul says that the church is built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, Jesus Christ being the cornerstone. (Ephesians 2:20)

That's not really what I'm talking about and not, I think, what Sproul was talking about.

Which books were excluded by the reformers?
 
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_Dave_

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That's a new, post Reformation, understanding.
It's the 1st century understanding. There were no church buildings, per se, in the time of the apostles. The church, meaning the body of Christ wherever two or more gathered, was mostly in people's homes.
 
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Mary Meg

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That's not what Paul says. Paul says that the church is built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, Jesus Christ being the cornerstone. (Ephesians 2:20)
My statement did not contradict that.
Which books were excluded by the reformers?
I wasn't really really talking about the Reformers, I was talking about R.C. Sproul. But the Reformers (it's unclear to me who or when or how) did reject, exclude, or at least downgrade the books called the Old Testament apocrypha, which had been considered part of the Bible for at least a millennium. And Luther did really, really want to reject or disparage the Epistle of James, an "epistle of straw," so I've read.

The point is -- and you haven't responded -- that at least some Protestants (including some Reformed), believe the Bible is a "fallible collection of infallible texts." They believe whoever compiled the Bible could have made mistakes in including certain books, that might not be scriptural at all. Which to me undermines the whole notion of any of it being infallible. If I can't be sure that a particular book is truly scriptural, what value is it to me at all?
 
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