By no means am I saying that the scriptures are not from God Himself brother. I’m simply saying that Peter was not referring to his own epistle when he wrote it. Nor any of the other epistles of the NT because they had not been deemed as inspired scripture at that time. They were personal letters of instruction to various churches. Peter was not advocation sola scriptura over the interpretational authority of the church. If he were then he COULD NOT have overridden the scriptures on the decision concerning the necessity of circumcision in Acts 15.
The apostles never canonized the scriptures. They were long dead when that happened. The very same men who decided what books to include in the Holy Bible also advocated many of the traditions of the Catholic Church. The Catholic beliefs on the Eucharist and prayers for the intercession of the saints and Mary for example had already been established even before the canonization of the Bible. St Iranaeus’ epistle to the Smyrnaeans written in 107AD confirms the Catholic teachings on the Eucharist and Origen and Cyprian advocated prayers to the saints in the 3rd century. So ultimately your trusting these men to decide which books are inspired by God but don’t trust them to make any decisions outside of the scriptures. You know, come to think about it, the scriptures never say anything about compiling a bible to begin with.
You are correct about Sola Scriptura. The Apostles did not originate that mode of study. NO ONE ever said that they did.
As Catholic scholars themselves recognize, it is not necessary that the Bible explicitly and formally teach
sola Scriptura in order for this doctrine to be true. Many Christian teachings are a necessary logical deduction OF IMPLICATIONS of what is clearly taught in the Bible.
The 1st thing that comes to my mind is the TRINITY.
Second, the Bible
does teach implicitly and logically, if not formally and explicitly, that the Bible alone is the only infallible basis for faith and practice. This it does in a number of ways. One, the fact that Scripture, without tradition, is said to be “God-breathed” (
theopnuestos) and thus by it believers are “
competent, equipped for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:16-17, emphasis added) supports the doctrine of
sola Scriptura. This flies in the face of the Catholic claim that the Bible is formally insufficient without the aid of tradition. St. Paul declares that the God-breathed writings
are sufficient. And contrary to some Catholic apologists, limiting this to only the Old Testament will not help the Catholic cause for two reasons: first, the New Testament is also called “Scripture” (2 Pet. 3:15-16; 1 Tim. 5:18; cf. Luke 10:7);
second, it is inconsistent to argue that God-breathed writings in the Old Testament are sufficient, but the inspired writings of the New Testament are not.
https://www.equip.org/article/a-defense-of-sola-scriptura/
It is true that the New Testament speaks of following the “traditions” (=teachings) of the apostles, whether oral or written. This is because they were living authorities set up by Christ (Matt. 18:18; Acts 2:42; Eph. 2:20).
When they died, however, there was no longer a living apostolic authority since only those who were eyewitnesses of the resurrected Christ could have apostolic authority (Acts 1:22; 1 Cor. 9:1).
That means that there are NO APOSTLES today because there is no such Scripture in the Bible that validate Apostolic succession.
So then, Because the New Testament is the only inspired (infallible) record of what the apostles taught, it follows that since the death of the apostles the only apostolic authority we have is the inspired record of their teaching in the New Testament. That is, all apostolic tradition (teaching) on faith and practice is in the New Testament.