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Well said Harry. The scripture twisting tradition is alive and well.
Rome's first Pope seems to agree with thatGod's Word can be trusted. Most Men can't.
It's through our own studying of Scripture ...
God?Who watches the watchmen?
I suppose that depends on whether one is RC/EO or ProtestantNope, not them either.
Hmm, isn't that strange?
Alright, so it is not an issue of 'do we accept Scripture as authoritative' but rather an issue of 'does Scripture contain every apostolic tradition' and 'do these traditions actually conflict with Scripture or not', as well as what to make of groups which vary in interpretation.
It seems that there is a lot of pointless arguing over 'is Scripture authoritative' when I doubt anyone here rejects it as authoritative.
I have seen Scripture used as an incentive to alleviate suffering and provide for those in need. I have also seen it used to condone murder (the killing of 3 civil-rights workers in Mississippi in the late 1960's). In both cases it has been the church's leadership that has used it.
We've gotten lazy. Instead of reading the Holy Bible ourselves, we have acquiesced to the notion that if we attend church regularly and listen to someone else as they read a few verses of Scripture, that will suffice. There are even some denominations on the radical fringe which tell their members that they are to read the commentaries written by their church's leadership concerning passages of Scripture rather than reading Scripture itself.
I accept Scripture as our 'yardstick'. Our mindset is to be in accordance with Galatians 5:16-26. Our actions are to be in the practical vein as described in Matthew 25:31-46. Our attitude toward what we do is to have the humility exhibited in Luke 17:7-10. Where we put our trust for our salvation should conform to Romans 3:19 to 5:10.
But we are not to put blind trust in what others tell us that Scripture says. We're to open the book ourselves and read not only whatever verses they used for their argument, but the verses that come before and the verses that follow after them. The minister who insisted that we in the laity were all to consider the deaths of those civil-rights workers as falling under the heading of 'slaying the wicked' used verses of Scripture as 'evidence' of his being correct. But we know that Scripture actually condemns such actions. He was one of those who thought that he had 'cowed' his congregants into accepting whatever he told them rather than going to Scripture itself to verify or refute his teachings.
There's an old saying: "Just because a mouse lives in a cookie jar doesn't make it a cookie." We need to take this to heart. There are those who genuinely want to do as God would have us do. But there are others whose nature is such that they have no problem whatsoever in perverting Scripture so as to make it serve their wants and desires. It's through our own studying of Scripture that we can recognize these 'wolves in sheeps clothing' when we encounter them.
Who watches the watchmen?
God?
Scriptures do not show everyone individually interpreting the scriptures.The NT was set up for us to be a priesthood of believers--we go to God. The Spirit will direct and inform. We have scripture. We may discern.
Scriptures do not show everyone individually interpreting the scriptures.
It's impossible to elevate the scriptures too highly:
I agree. I keep mine on a small home-made altar with an athame which I use to sacrifice small pigeons and other tweety birds to the Holy Book. Last week I caught a rabbit and burned it to the Bible as well.
We all need to realize that John 1:1 means that the Bible IS God. We need nothing but the Bible, and we should all worship our Amazon.com: NIV Compact Thinline Bible (9780310937661): Zondervan: Books
/ends demonstration of why that is very wrong
WHA??/ NIV is a false idol merely
posing as the KJV, which alone is the TRUE WORD OF GOD!
WHA??/ NIV is a false idol merely posing as the KJV, which alone is the TRUE WORD OF GOD!
*screams* HERESY!!!!
*more moderate tone* My NIV has "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." and by this I KNOW that the NIV is the Only True Word of God(TM). All other versions are Satanic Vain Traditions of Man Lies of Satan!!!!
A conversation was derailing another thread and so
I'm moving the discussion here.
We're discussing using Scripture as a measuring tool.
We're not calling this practice by any formal name,
just it is what it is, using Scripture to measure.
Here's how the conversation began:
So why not use the 1st council of Nicea as a starting point for your rule? It is a clear formulation of Christian doctrine based on scripture, and it was agreed upon universally by all organized bodies of Christianity at that time.
Seeing as the Scriptures were written by the Holy Spirit through appointed men, I believe that it should be the measuring stick. It's the only thing I know to be true. It is from God. So, if someone claiming that they are giving a revelation from God, then I am going to measure it by the one thing I know that is from God and is true.
Besides, if what man are claiming to be from God, then they should have no problem of someone measuring their statements from what we know of to be from God.
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