Solving the Problem of false doctrine

[Darren Court]

Really? Every voice must be tested by Sola Scriptura? The following passage describes a voice. Please show me where the passage says to test the voice via a scholarly analysis of Scripture:

"I still have much to tell you, but you cannot yet bear to hear it. 13However, when the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth. For He will not speak on His own, but He will speak what He hears, and He will declare to you what is to come. 14He will glorify Me by taking from what is Mine and disclosing it to you." (John16).

So you evaded the question in order to continue your attack on SS.
"
Seriously.... "maybe you should tell us what authority is so great to judge whether that "voice" you like to refer to is God's, your own or anothers?

 

[Darren Court]

You're asking how we are to decide whether a voice is authoritative? For example, how did the prophet Abraham decide? (As mentioned in post 63). Is this your question? If it is, you are finally asking the right question.

How sad that, after 2,000 years of scholarly analysis, the church still doesn't know the only plausible answer to this question. And as far as I can see, the correct answer is rather obvious and just plain common sense. This isn't to insult you - I just don't understand how all the brilliant minds of the past managed to overlook something relatively simple and fundamental. This critical oversight further confirms that scholarly analysis is a very tenuous endeavor.

...and yet you with your vastly greater knowledge of 2,000 years of church history and the most brilliant of minds, know the answer is "rather obvious and just plain common sense"..... but can't seem to actually articulate what it is!

 

[Darren Court]

It seems you're asking me to prove 100% that Paul, writing in Greek, used the expression "man of God" in the same way as the Hebrew expression for "man of God." Let's be mature here: I can't prove anything 100%. I can't even prove that you exist. Like I said, all I needed to do was demonstrate that "man of God = prophets" is one viable translation (one possible translation) rooted in OT precedent, thereby undermining the assumption that 2 Tim 3:16-17 is 100% proof of Sola Scriptura. Mission accomplished.

Establishing OT precedent is useful. Why so? Because it is exegetically illegal to reach a conclusion devoid of some kind of linguistic precedent. It doesn't necessarily have to be a biblical precedent, I just need to plausibly argue that Greek or Hebrew has been used in such ways in the past. In this case, however, the precedent was in fact a biblical one, which is icing on the cake.

Let's be mature about this.... I'm not asking you to PROVE anything and so what it "seems" like to you it isn't!
.
Maybe if you read the actual words written rather than guessing what I should have written, you'd do better?
.
So to be clear, I'm asking for ANY evidence biblical or ancient writings that show the Greek words "man of god" are used in the same way to mean the same thing (i.e. prophet) as there are in the Hebrew. ANY EVIDENCE?

 

[Darren Court]

Isn't it interesting that Paul used the expression "man of God" in both of his epistles to Timothy - but in none of the epistles explicitly addressed to the whole church! Pure coincidence? I seriously doubt it.

Paul's desire for the whole church is expressed at 1 Cor 14:1 - not to mention 1 Cor 12:31.

...and yet it's absolutely clear from the context that Paul was not just speaking to Timothy in much of both letters!

 

[JAL]

Let's be mature about this.... I'm not asking you to PROVE anything and so what it "seems" like to you it isn't!
.
Maybe if you read the actual words written rather than guessing what I should have written, you'd do better?
.
So to be clear, I'm asking for ANY evidence biblical or ancient writings that show the Greek words "man of god" are used in the same way to mean the same thing (i.e. prophet) as there are in the Hebrew. ANY EVIDENCE?

The term Trinity never appears in Scripture and yet you believe it. It's a logical construct.

I provided you a logical construct based on 70 verses where "man of God" does appear. Let's take a partial walk through the verses listed in the Wikipedia:

Moses was the top prophet of his day. "Moses is the only person called “man of God” in the Torah."

Next, a male oracle speaks a prophecy to Samson's mother. She twice calls him a man of god.

Next, "27Now a man of God came to Eli and said to him, “This is what the Lord says:". That's prophecy.

Next comes the prophet Samuel described thusly in Scripture, "6But the servant replied, “Look, in this town there is a man of God; he is highly respected, and everything he says comes true."

Soon to follow are the prophets Elijah and Elisha.

The pattern is clear enough. I'm not going to sit here and walk through 78 verses one by one. Clearly, you ARE demanding 100% proof. You clearly will NOT be satisfied with a logical construct.

Again, I don't have to ESTABLISH anything. I just had to show that "man of God" is POSSIBLY a reference to a prophet. Which I did.

The only reason you think there's a burden of proof on me is your indoctrination into Sola Scriptura. Your mindset is, "The default assumption must be Sola Scriptura until 100% proven otherwise."

MY mindset is, "That's not the default assumption. In fact, Sola Scriptura CANNOT be true because it is logically self-contradictory."

 

[JAL]

...and yet it's absolutely clear from the context that Paul was not just speaking to Timothy in much of both letters!

Your point? In those days, it was common for the apostles to hand-transfer the gift of prophecy. Paul laid hands on Timothy. Paul does NOT mention laying hands on Philemon and does NOT refer to him as a man of God. Another coincidence? I seriously doubt it.

 

[JAL]

So to be clear, I'm asking for ANY evidence biblical or ancient writings that show the Greek words "man of god" are used in the same way to mean the same thing (i.e. prophet) as there are in the Hebrew. ANY EVIDENCE?

I supplied plenty of evidence. The Greek Septuagint translation used the same Greek words that Paul used for "man of God", when translating the 78 Hebrew verses into Greek. Based on this data, it's a reasonable logical construct.

Further, Paul counseled Timothy to preach the gospel. I can link you to a couple of posts, if you like, where I demonstrate that the NT defines evangelism as prophetic utterance (as a number of scholars have concluded). This is more evidence that Timothy "the man of God" was a prophet.

 

[JAL]

...and yet you with your vastly greater knowledge of 2,000 years of church history and the most brilliant of minds, know the answer is "rather obvious and just plain common sense"..... but can't seem to actually articulate what it is!

I have already articulated it on these forums more than once.

Most people come here to teach. They don't LIKE to be taught. That's how human pride works. So this time around, I'd like to give people a chance to figure out the answer for themselves.

But maybe that's not possible, if they are blinded by 2,000 years of indoctrination.

 

[JAL]

So to be clear, I'm asking for ANY evidence biblical or ancient writings that show the Greek words "man of god" are used in the same way to mean the same thing (i.e. prophet) as there are in the Hebrew. ANY EVIDENCE?

NT evangelism is prophetic utterance. Paul never counsels the whole church to evangelize - instead he counsels them to seek the gift of prophecy (1 Cor 14:1).

He counseled Timothy "the man of God" to evangelize - Timothy the prophet.

 

[JAL]

So to be clear, I'm asking for ANY evidence biblical or ancient writings that show the Greek words "man of god" are used in the same way to mean the same thing (i.e. prophet) as there are in the Hebrew. ANY EVIDENCE?

Can you at least make a list of verses where the Bible uses the expression "man of God" and is clearly NOT referring to a prophet? Will you do this for us all, please?

 

[JAL]

Do you know what a translation is? You know when something is written in one language and then converted to another?
Well, mistakes happen!

Gee. I had no idea.

.
Here, you demonstrate ignorance of this reality!

I profusely apologize. It never occurred to me.

As if "Scholars consider it invaluable as a resource." means they think the Septuagint is without mistakes in translation.... LOTS OF THEM!!! Is this ignorance on your behalf or just selective memory to avoid the fact that turning to the Septuagint provides no support for the claim you want to make?
.
Would you like a list of references that point out the Septuagint is flawed or do you somehow believe translations themselves are infalliable?

This is silly. Obviously, scholars are fallible/flawed. So all translations of the Bible are useless because they are all flawed?

Again, let's be mature.

 

[JAL]

So you evaded the question in order to continue your attack on SS.

Am I sensing indignation here? How dare anyone attack such a solid position, right? Newsflash: Sola Scriptura has never been solid, for several reasons:

....(1) It depends on fallible men because you must learn Greek and Hebrew from men. This alone is enough to reject it.
....(2) It trades on exegetical proofs. Why is that a problem? A proof is built on assumptions which in turn need to be proven. This leads to an infinite regress where nothing is ever proven. To break this vicious cycle—to prevent the infinite regress—the exegete must provisionally stipulate a set of foundational assumptions as a starting point. To some extent, therefore, it's a stab in the dark.
...(3) For 90% of world history, people didn't have Bibles for lack of a printing press. Prophecy has always existed.
....(4) Ethics are too complex - life is just too complicated (with its issues and conflicts of types political, economic, social, environmental, ecclesiastical ) - to reliably determine the specifics of God's will from Scripture.
...(5) Sola Scriptura means that Scripture must teach everything needed, including it must teach SS itself. As Catholics have pointed out, it doesn't actually bother to propose SS as a doctrine, as is clear from:
.........(A) The NT shows hints of Paul having an oral authority. For example, "Hold fast to the traditions we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter" (2 Th 2;15). This challenges the idea that God intended for the church to be ruled exclusively by a scholarly analysis of canonized written text.
.......,(B) The NT never proposed SS because it never clearly envisioned a NT canon nor named/identified the books of any such canon.

Seriously.... "maybe you should tell us what authority is so great to judge whether that "voice" you like to refer to is God's, your own or anothers?

You're expecting too much. To solve the authority-problem, you must lower the bar. I suppose I am at fault for expecting everyone to be able to figure that out for themselves. You can deem me misleading if you like, but I honestly wasn't trying to be. Instead of answering this question:
.......How do I know a voice to be God's voice?

Try answering this question:
.....Under what circumstances is a voice authoritative (i.e. obligatory) to me, myself, and I?

Does that help? Does it help you understand why Abraham hearkened to the Voice commanding him to slaughter his son? And why angels hearken only to one Voice?

 

[Vanellus]

I'm just considering the possibilities. If you're still not sure what I'm driving at, please see the recent summary at post 96.

This doesn't change the fact that your 3 questions in #87 about Abraham were pointless, since he didn't have scripture.

 

[JAL]

This doesn't change the fact that your 3 questions in #87 about Abraham were pointless, since he didn't have scripture.

I think we talked past each other at some juncture. I trust that others didn't find it pointless if they saw where I was coming from.

Please disregard the post as I don't want to spend any more time trying to resolve the disconnect.

 

[Landon Caeli]

Agreed. Many opinions but only one God and one Bible and one Truth taught in that one Bible"?

How do you know there's only "one Bible and one Truth taught in that one Bible"?

...If this is from Deuteronomy, then that's the old testament, and we already accept the whole new testament being added. And our old testament books are ordered differently than what Jesus would have read in the Tanakh.

 

[BobRyan]

How do you know there's only "one Bible and one Truth taught in that one Bible"?

...If this is from Deuteronomy, then that's the old testament, and we already accept the whole new testament being added. And our old testament books are ordered differently than what Jesus would have read in the Tanakh.

Ok so I live in the 21st century and I am fine with that.

The 27 books of the NT had not been written at the time Christ was on Earth but He oversaw that project as well.

The Bible is not a book of confusing contradictions it is the Word of God and it can be trusted. It is a much better guide then "all the winds of doctrine" that blow from various corners of the world in different religions.

 

[BobRyan]

This doesn't change the fact that your 3 questions in #87 about Abraham were pointless, since he didn't have scripture.

And since the Holy Spirit inspired scripture and also guides us today as we read HIS text.

 

[BobRyan]

NT evangelism is prophetic utterance. Paul never counsels the whole church to evangelize

Jesus does that in Matt 28:17-19

We can trust Jesus.

Paul tells the church that just as HE is an example to THEM - they also should be examples to others of how to be a Christian.

1 Thess 1:
5 For our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit and in much assurance, as you know what kind of men we were among you for your sake.

6 And you became followers of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Spirit, 7 so that you became examples to all in Macedonia and Achaia who believe. 8 For from you the word of the Lord has sounded forth, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place. Your faith toward God has gone out, so that we do not need to say anything. 9 For they themselves declare concerning us what manner of entry we had to you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God,

1 Thess 2:
10 You are witnesses, and God also, how devoutly and justly and blamelessly we behaved ourselves among you who believe; 11 as you know how we exhorted, and comforted, and charged every one of you, as a father does his own children, 12 that you would walk worthy of God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory.

13 For this reason we also thank God without ceasing, because when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe. 14 For you, brethren, became imitators of the churches of God which are in Judea in Christ Jesus. For you also suffered the same things from your own countrymen, just as they did from the Judeans,

 

[BobRyan]

He counseled Timothy "the man of God" to evangelize - Timothy the prophet.

Evangelists and prophets are different gifts in the church not the same gift. See 1 Cor 12 and Eph 4.

AND there is no place in all of scripture that says "only share the Truth of God's Word - if you are a prophet".. Nothing like that exists.

Eph 4:
11 And He gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, some as pastors and teachers, 12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ;

 

[JAL]

Jesus does that in Matt 28:17-19

We can trust Jesus.

Jesus commanded his 12 apostles/prophets to evangelize the world. Not the whole church. The so-called Great Commission, then, was actually the Great Omission.

Paul tells the church that just as HE is an example to THEM - they also should be examples to others of how to be a Christian.

1 Thess 1:
5 For our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit and in much assurance, as you know what kind of men we were among you for your sake.

6 And you became followers of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Spirit, 7 so that you became examples to all in Macedonia and Achaia who believe. 8 For from you the word of the Lord has sounded forth, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place. Your faith toward God has gone out, so that we do not need to say anything. 9 For they themselves declare concerning us what manner of entry we had to you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God,

1 Thess 2:
10 You are witnesses, and God also, how devoutly and justly and blamelessly we behaved ourselves among you who believe; 11 as you know how we exhorted, and comforted, and charged every one of you, as a father does his own children, 12 that you would walk worthy of God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory.

13 For this reason we also thank God without ceasing, because when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe. 14 For you, brethren, became imitators of the churches of God which are in Judea in Christ Jesus. For you also suffered the same things from your own countrymen, just as they did from the Judeans,

Nope. None of those verses strongly rings of a command to evangelize.