It is useless when ascending to God...
Where Paul saw things of which it is not lawful to speak...
It is FROM this Place of ascent that Scripture was GIVEN...
The Giver, you see, is greater than the Given...
What? Paul sees things not lawful to speak form of revelation is what you elevate under the premise that your church is surely saying what Paul did, yet we know both of Paul's ascent and his teaching because it was written, usually this being the direct source of his words.
There is not dispute over Scripture being given from a place of assent, that of the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, not in Paul's assent here, but it is the supreme status of God's written word that is the issue you deny.
Scripture is not the supreme standard of faith, but God Who GAVE the Written to us..
This very God Who created the heavens and the earth...
THAT One IS the Supreme standard of faith...
And He GAVE something MUCH more valuable than Holy Writ...
He gave His Only begotten Son...
And the Son gave us His Faith that we in Him should become One with God..
.
What sophistry is this? Surely God is supreme, as is the leader of a country to his people, but unless you thing merely being in the position is enough to instruct the subject in his will, then we must deal with communication. Christianity 101... And thus what the supreme body of that is. Which is Scripture, versus what some church states is God's word necessarily being so.
Asserting "Scripture is not the supreme standard of faith, but God Who GAVE the Written to us is, is the kind of argument one makes when they want to exalt their own "revelation" of God as superior, and not subject to testing by Scripture. Why not just admit this if so?
Well, it is your choice - You can put your faith in Scripture... I place mine in God...
Once more you resort to a false dichotomy, for there is no either/or despite what you imagine. You cannot put your faith in God without putting faith in what He himself calls and inspired as His word, and you cannot believe His word without believing in the source. Christianity 101... And Scripture is the assured wholly inspired and substantive word of God.
Scripture is a MEANS and a HELP to encounter God...
So that its it? Rather, contrary to your marginalization , it is His authoritative word, by which the Lord defeated the devil ("it is written") and reproved men by, and with the reading of it effecting obedience and revival, since oral tradition failed, and established His mission by it as the supreme standard.
Your marginalization of Scripture and elevation of personal encounters "speaks" volumes.
I encountered God outside Scripture...
So did Muhammad and Joe Smith, which did not validate their "revelation" any more than it does yours.
And validated that encounter when I read Scripture...
So you say.
But actually, I validated Scripture...
To be gracious, actually once again there is no necessary mutual exclusion, in the sense that while Scripture was already validated as being from God without you, its authority validating what you believed as being of God further attested to it being the sure supreme standard, versus your private revelation which needed to be tested and validated.
God still had to tell me that He is the God of Scripture...
But I am thick headed...
And was an atheist...
Glad if God got thru to you if only to some degree.
The other tenet that I would like to share with you is that you will NEVER Biblically prove your way into heaven by taking other people's [the People of God] Revelation from God and applying your mastery of logic over what they wrote for the Faith...
Which is a perversion of the case. Rather, I can Biblically prove the way into heaven by taking God's wholly inspired revelation - His word, not man's - and using the logic which the Lord appealed to in teaching Truth, and depending upon the illumination of the Spirit, and showing how what one professes (as basic doctrine at least) is Scriptural or not. Which is NT Berean Christianity 101.
Aquinas did it, had but ONE encounter with God a year before the end of his life, and stopped writing and teaching, with the words: "ALL that I have written is STRAW." All our thoughts are but yesterday's garbage in comparison with such an encounter...
Once again this is closer to Gnosticism than Christianity, not that God cannot provide supernatural encounters, but you effectively make this the standard for Truth, elevating subjective personal encounters, while marginalizing the objective, Scripture, as a mere MEANS and a HELP to encounter God, but not as the transcendent supreme standard for obedience and testing and establishing truth claims which it is
abundantly evidenced to be.
It is a huge blessing to have a Bible, unless, of course, you use it as a weapon to destroy those with whom you disagree... It is intended for YOUR benefit, you see,
Which restriction indicates ignorance of Scripture on your part. The word of God, which Scripture assuredly is, is also a sword which cuts two ways. Did not Jesus say to follow Him? What was He doing refuting the devil by Scripture, and reproving false beliefs by them? Thus saying such things as "Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God." (Matthew 22:29) "Search the scriptures...For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me. " (John 5:39,46)
Did not Paul say "Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ?" (1 Corinthians 11:1) And what was he doing in saying, we "preach unto you that ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God" (Acts 14:15) and "Therefore disputed he in the synagogue with the Jews, and with the devout persons, and in the market daily with them that met with him, (Acts 17:17) and preaching Scriptural truths to them in correction, and also in that interest "expounded and testified the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus, both out of the law of Moses, and out of the prophets, from morning till evening?" (Acts 28:23)
Preaching Truth means preaching against what opposes it.
But such use is not to destroy those who err but to destroy their manifestly unscriptural false beliefs, no matter how much they profess a contrary personal revelation from God.
and in the Church it is read daily, and the Psalter is prayed weekly, aloud so it can be heard... If you want to use the bible as a weapon to attack religious organizations you detest, then thst will be your reward from the Gift you have been given by it...
Actually as Truth is exclusive by nature, professing necessarily is an attack on those who deny it, and thus you are attacking what those like myself believe. And without hypocrisy, Scripture commands, And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. (Ephesians 5:11)
Thus this argument also fails.
Good to see you have read some Chrysostom!
Sad to see you contradicted him (you did).
Or course, we know Rome later on much hindered personal reading of Scripture,
which is what we nowhere see in Scripture itself, and while the degree of availability and literacy was a hindrance to private reading of Scripture, what you need to show is that this reading was on purpose and even prevented by the NT church, since they held as you hold, that Scripture was intended for public reading to the laity, and "NOT for their reading."
The Latin Rome in Italia did - The New Rome at Constantinople did not... So congrats! You are half right!
No,m i said Rome, but since you stated that Scripture was intended for public reading to the laity, and "NOT for their reading" which also was Rome's attitude, then as said, "what you need to show is that this reading was on purpose and even prevented by the NT church, since [under the premise]they held as you hold, that Scripture was intended for public reading to the laity, and 'NOT for their reading.'"
But if you allow the likes of Chrysostom to be right in their advocation of personal private study, then what you need to argue is that if the laity find any contradiction btwn Scripture - even from what they hear - and they (choose brand here_____) Orthodox church then they are to always to believe the latter, based upon their claims to historicity. RCs must do the same.
Reading Scripture is not a philosophic enterprise designed to prove yourself right and all those other dullards wrong...
Once again I see your sophistry, relegating the use of Scripture in reproving error to being "a philosophic enterprise designed to prove yourself right and all those other dullards wrong" - which was never my argument, and is a gross misconstruance of it, and the apologetical use of Scripture.
Instead, while the use of Scripture can prove oneself right and dullards wrong, as the Lord and His apostles did, such as Paul "confounded the Jews which dwelt at Damascus, proving that this is very Christ, (Acts 9:22) but because they did does not mean this itself was their purpose, but to save souls, and reprove error which is contrary to that.
Its meanings are slowly revealed across time, and there is much that is not understood in ANY particular reading of it... It is to be read only in prayer, and preferably in fasting, and in the context of the praxis of the Faith, and if so read or heard, one will find new meaning with each reading...
You know this...
Which is healthy advice overall, but not restricted to fasting (no Bible, no breakfast), or with the context of the traditional practice of the Faith necessarily being definitive of its meaning, as instead practice is to conform to Scripture. Which reliably shows us what the NT church believed.
It remains "that what you need to argue is that if the laity find any contradiction btwn Scripture - even from what they hear - and they (choose brand here_____) Orthodox church then they are to always to believe the latter, based upon their claims to historicity. RCs must do the same."
This also is fallacious, since despite your tendency toward false dichotomies, faith coming by HEARING is not opposed to READING, any more then since things such as John 5:46 which were spoken as the word of God and heard as such were from the the written word, and we know the very text you refer to because it was written!
So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. (Romans 10:17) I Tertius, who wrote this epistle, salute you in the Lord.
While you make hearing to be the means of providing what to believe in, John states, But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name. (John 20:31) This is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his testimony is true. (John 21:24)
Which means they were violating what you said that these Holy and manuscripted Scrolls were not intended for private reading and study, but were for public reading..read aloud to the faithful for their hearing... NOT for their reading..
Underwhelming... Paul instructed that his Epistles be read aloud in the Churches...
So back to your old Latin classes...
/COLOR]
Its your response to this reproof which is Underwhelming. And despite resorting to a false dichotomy, hearing what is read is simply not opposed to reading Scripture yourself, and which we see in Scripture, and nowhere see a prohibition of this.
We actually know that Paul instructed that his Epistles be read aloud in the Churches, and what his inspired letters said because we can read it. And whether I hear Scripture being read (which i do) or read it, then i am still getting the word of God, and can examine what is preached by it, while having my own copy would help better for obey the command,
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. (Colossians 3:16).
Thus your restriction to hearing versus personal reading does not make much sense unless your position is that the NT church did not want the laity to be more knowledgeable in the Scriptures, and to be utterly dependent upon leadership for this, and not be a privileged group as you said the Bereans were.
Thus by showing that faith coming by HEARING is not opposed to READING, and that revelation was written i have showed that God wants revelation communicated by Scripture, and which can hardly mean it should be restricted when the means are provided for more knowledge of it.
Quid, Erat, Spat! 
Even Latin will not help you here. Try the common tongue.
Indeed, Rather than simply believing what was told to them they went to Scripture as being the supreme authority - which the apostles preached from. (Acts 17:2)
True only in your imagination - The Apostles told them what they would find, and they went and found what they were told... Q.E.S. again...
Which simply proves my point - not yours, for what the apostles preached was what Scripture attested to, and thus was confirmed by searching the same, and thus the supremacy of Scripture is only further affirmed, not personal esoteric revelation.
If
And somehow you imagine that you have an argument against privately reading the Scriptures and subjecting Truth claims to testing thereby?
"I AM the Truth." [Christ's very words - Another Q.E.S.
Which as a response to Scripture being God's Truth, and thus to communication by Him as revealing His will, means all you have is a mute Christ, who did not provide what John did, and never added to what He invoked as the direct and and indirect validation of His Truth claims, or that Scripture is not His most reliable word, but some other form is more reliable and superior to it.
Which is just as absurd as your prior response against Scripture being the supreme standard of faith by asserting God Who GAVE the Written to us is. And makes what God says is His inspired word to be not be the known standard for His Truth. Argumentum ad absurdum
God illumines, manuscripted words do not...
Oh please stop with your illogical false dichotomies. Of course God illumines, but He does use means, from nature to manuscripted words. Christianity 101... And thus you must argue that only your faith is given the most correct illumination of Scripture, if they say so themselves based upon their illumination, which cannot be wrong. Which is consistent with cultism.
And don't start me on them Tex Ritter songs, Cow Girl!
Sorry you also confuse genders.
"Then He OPENED THEIR UNDERESTANDING THAT THEY SHOULD UNDERSTAND THE SCRIPTURES..."
From your very lips... From the mouths of babes... Even from Barlaam's banana eating transportation! The Defense Rests! You see, until GOD opens your understanding so that you even CAN understand Scripture, then all the prattling in the world about how it is that Scripture is the ultimate authority of enlightening the faithful is but fluff from Barlaam's banana eater...
Indeed the Defense Rests, for once again we see Scripture being invoked as the supreme standard, and thus knowledge and thus reading of it encouraged, contrary to your thesis, while in order for your to have any valid argument it remains that you must argue that only your faith is given the most correct illumination of Scripture, if they say so themselves based upon their illumination, which cannot be wrong.
while Apollos "mightily convinced the Jews, and that publickly, shewing by the scriptures that Jesus was Christ." (Acts 18:28)
And all that great persuasion did not save the Jews, but only their remnant...
Which is also illogical, for the failure to fully effect what an instrument could if souls did not harden their heart simply does not invalidate its use and status, unless the premise is that the instrument is promised do to so and must in order to have that status. By which standard the preaching of Christ Himself was a failed means.
Meanwhile Paul appealed to the illiterate Gentiles by natural revelation (Acts 14; 17) as well as Scriptural supernatural attestation, which itself is subject to Scripture as being confirmatory of Truth, as Scripture is the only wholly inspired substantive body of Truth.
You left our WORKS OF POWER AND REVELATION... An abundance of vision, I say!
No i did not, for i distinctly said "as well as Scriptural supernatural attestation," but all of which subjective means is "subject to Scripture as being confirmatory of Truth." Even the devil can do miracles in affirmation of deception, and even took Christ up to a high mountain, but "it is written" defeated him.
It is this you find in abundance in the Acts of the Apostles, and not what the apostles preached being independent from Scripture or not subject to testing by it, and that this thus justifies the purported revelations of your church, and of them not being subject to testing by Scripture.
Forgive me, but this is becoming tedious... Gonna break it here...
Have a good night!
Indeed your rote denial of what is obvious by a man who touts revelation is tedious.
Now let me plainly ask you, is it possible for the laity to correctly ascertain what is of God and the meaning thereof in dissent from the historical magisterial authorities on this. Or if your own authorities cannot err, what warrants this of them versus others who can lay claim to historical validity?
Another tedious and silly question that has nothing to do with the Eastern Catholics...
Looks more like avoidance to me. Tell us what the basis is for your assurance of Truth, and whether your church can be wrong in this matter, and on what basis does their veracity rest. .
I am not dreaming.
