Can the Church Survive Without God's Word?

Tree of Life said:

God's word is essential. God's word is clearly and infallibly contained in Scripture. Someone can be saved through a paraphrase of Scripture.

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Ok. Thanks! That's actually LESS strict than I've heard it put by others. I followed you btw

Tree of Life said:

For our purposes here there's not a relevant difference between these things.

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My whole point is that there is a difference, and unless you acknowledge the distinctions I'm trying to make, you'll probably continue your jaw-dropping in horror. But maybe you enjoy that.

I have to go eat supper but I'll be back later.

Some facts to know about the Parable of the Sower:
(That I think will help folks to understand the importance of the Scriptures here in being essential component to our faith).

#1. In the Parable of the Weeds, we learn that He that sows the good seed is the Son of man (Jesus) (Matthew 13:37).

#2. The seed is the word of God, i.e. the gospel message from the Scriptures (Luke 8:11) (For we are born of incorruptible seed, which is the word of God that endures forever, see: 1 Peter 1:23-25; Also the words of Jesus are spiritual and they are life - John 6:63).

#3. Only those individuals who are labeled as: "The seed by the way side" are those who when they have heard the word, Satan came immediately, and took away the word that was sown in their hearts. (Mark 4:15). This is not said of the other seeds who fell away.

#4. The alternative to the "seed by way side" to be saved is if they "believe" in order to be saved (Luke 8:12). For Luke 8:12 says, "lest they should believe and be saved."

#5. We see that the one of the other seeds (that fell away later) do believe. However, they only believe for a while. Meaning, they are only saved for a while. For Luke 8:13 says, "They on the rock are they, which, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, which for a while believe, and in time of temptation fall away."

#6. What was the cause of their falling away? Was it because they never believed in the first place? No. It was in time of temptation that they fall away (Again see Luke 8:13) (Also see Hebrews 3:12-14).

#7. The plants sprung up (Which means they had life).
Luke 8:6-7 says, "And some fell upon a rock; and as soon as it was sprung up, it withered away, because it lacked moisture. And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprang up with it, and choked it. In other words, it choked the life out of it. 1 Timothy 6:10 says, "For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows." We are told to continue in His goodness, otherwise we will be cut off (See Romans 11:21-22).

#8. They had "no root" within themselves (Matthew 13:21) is that they did not have root in ALL of God's Word. They only believed the milk of the Word (the gospel message of salvation in Jesus - The entrance to salvation) (1 Corinthians 3:2) (1 Peter 2:2), but they did not move on to the meat of the Word (Which is discern between good and evil - Hebrews 5:14). They did not have a root in doing righteousness (Which is also by Jesus Christ - Romans 13:14, John 15:5). Proverbs 12:3 says, "A man shall not be established by wickedness: but the root of the righteous shall not be moved." For he that does righteousness is righteous (1 John 3:7). This is the root, they did not have. It is the teachings of Jesus that tell us to live holy and righteous as a part of God's saving grace. Instead, they fell away due to specific sins like being offended by persecution and falling into desiring to be rich.

Tree of Life said:

God's word is essential. God's word is clearly and infallibly contained in Scripture. Someone can be saved through a paraphrase of Scripture.

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The reason I asked is that the logical implication is that without the Bible no one can be saved, and if no one is being saved then the Church will die out.

redleghunter said:

But they had the Apostles and many other called evangelists.

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They certainly did. Now you're catching on.

Tree of Life said:

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.

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Of course it could. It would look very different than it does, but it could.

To all:

Jesus died for our sins and rose three days later according to the Scriptures (1 Corinthians 15:1-4). When we call upon the name of the Lord [i.e. Jesus], we shall be saved (Romans 10:13). We obviously know that without these words from Scripture, we cannot be saved. This is the gospel message. Without the Word of God like this, nobody can be saved. So if the church continued on without a Bible and they forgot about the gospel message from the Bible, they would be a dead institution that had no life to give to anyone. The power is in the gospel as preached from God's Word (the Scriptures). This is not another gospel according to men. But this is the gospel of God. If anyone who comes across this forum and reads this, and they desire to have a taste of the good word of God, and to be in a right relationship with the Lord Jesus (and have an assurance of salvation), I would encourage them to seek forgiveness with the Lord Jesus Christ and believe in His death and resurrection for their salvation (Which is in line with the Scriptures). For Jesus came to give life and so that you can have it more abundantly. Spiritual life. A life full of love, joy, peace, etc. Jesus desires to save. Call upon the Lord Jesus Christ today. Seek His forgiveness. Believe that He died and rose again on your behalf. This is in accordance with the Holy Scriptures. This is how we get saved. That is why nobody should ever speak against the Bible as not being necessary for faith or salvation. For if one acts upon accepting Jesus as their Savior, they are acting in accordance to God's Word (the Scriptures).

Well, a lot of churches are surviving on their own traditions instead of the Bible, so those ones will continue if there was no Bible. But they will be doing everything in the flesh according to man's wisdom and not through the Spirit. The Protestant church I have been involved with for the last 22 years has operated according to its Book of Order and has basically ignored the Bible in the way it is run. Yes, they give lip service to the Bible and preach adult Bible Study type sermons to give knowledge of the Bible, but if there was no Bible,the preaching would change to just self improvement and positivity type messages according to Norman Vincent Peale, and the structure of the church would continue according to it Book of Order.

Tree of Life said:

Are they true churches?

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The true church is made up of those who are born again of the Spirit of God. The denominational structures are the man-made scaffolding that contains them. Error is when people view their church organisation and building as "the church" instead of the born again, Spirit-filled folk who enter its door to worship the Lord. We need the visible church to be there as a testimony for Christ in the world.

But, when a visible church organisation rejects the supernatural gifts of the Spirit and conducts its services and preaching without them, they are moving in the flesh and not the Spirit, in spite of those people asking the Holy Spirit to come and "hover over them". The Holy Spirit's attitude is that if they reject His supernatural gifts - refusing to allow the gift of prophecy to function, and forbidding the use of tongues and interpretation, not ministering healing to the sick, then He won't come near the place, and their prayers are useless.

HTacianas said:

I think that the Synod of Hippo was guided by the Holy Spirit in determining the books of the Christian canon. As Jesus said:

Mat 18:20 - For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”

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So it is GOD. GOD made the Bible ultimately possible here and it was not men (Which proves my point that the Scriptures are holy and inerrant) which is not the case with church traditions, history, visions, teachings by men who claim to be Jesus, etc. There are many evidences backing up God's Word in that it is a holy book, and this is not the case for written works that are not the Bible.

Jason0047 said:

So it is GOD. GOD made the Bible ultimately possible here and it was not men (Which proves my point that the Scriptures are holy and inerrant) which is not the case with church traditions, history, visions, teachings by men who claim to be Jesus, etc. There are many evidences backing up God's Word in that it is a holy book, and this is not the case for written works that are not the Bible.

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If God made the bible when did He make it and who decided to remove a bunch of books from it?

It says about this covenant that no one will say to their neighbour "know the Lord" since all of them will know God, from the greatest to the least of them.

Technically, you do not need the bible for Jesus to build His church. However, the church as it is would fall apart (mostly) without the bible.

To literally answer the question in the survey, God's word is Jesus, so of course the church cannot survive without Jesus!

HTacianas said:

If God made the bible when did He make it and who decided to remove a bunch of books from it?

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"All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work" (2 Timothy 3:16-17).

That settles it for me.

Oscarr said:

"All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work" (2 Timothy 3:16-17).

That settles it for me.

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That doesn't answer the question.