Chuck asks...
Dear Frank,
The spoken word of the apostles IS what makes up the New Testament along with Christ's recorded words. The miracles of Christ and the apostles gradually stopped in frequency after the New Testament was completed. Also the book of revelation warns against addition. The bible is complete to Jesus second coming and beyond. ANY FURTHER Bible is #1 not needed, #2 not instructed, # 3 redundant. There are some gifted leaders today, but when they start with "thus saith the lord", we're looking for trouble! Almost EVERY CULT has extra Biblical writing they put equal with the bible. 2Th 2:14 God used our preaching as his way of inviting you to share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. 2Th 2:15 My friends, that's why you must remain faithful and follow closely what we taught you in person and by our letters.( contemporary english version,) there was no complete New Testament at this time. There is no one who was singled out by Christ. The New Testament is complete. Mormons, Jehovahs witness, and a multitude of smaller cults add past the new testament. My Bible is complete.
Rev 22:1 The angel showed me a river that was crystal clear, and its waters gave life. The river came from the throne where God and the Lamb were seated. Rev 22:2 Then it flowed down the middle of the city's main street. On each side of the river are trees that grow a different kind of fruit each month of the year. The fruit gives life, and the leaves are used as medicine to heal the nations. Rev 22:3 God's curse will no longer be on the people of that city. He and the Lamb will be seated there on their thrones, and its people will worship God Rev 22:4 and will see him face to face. God's name will be written on the foreheads of the people. Rev 22:5 Never again will night appear, and no one who lives there will ever need a lamp or the sun. The Lord God will be their light, and they will rule forever. Rev 22:6 Then I was told: These words are true and can be trusted. The Lord God controls the spirits of his prophets, and he is the one who sent his angel to show his servants what must happen right away. Rev 22:7 Remember, I am coming soon! God will bless everyone who pays attention to the message of this book. Rev 22:8 My name is John, and I am the one who heard and saw these things. Then after I had heard and seen all this, I knelt down and began to worship at the feet of the angel who had shown it to me. Rev 22:9 But the angel said, Don't do that! I am a servant, just like you. I am the same as a follower or a prophet or anyone else who obeys what is written in this book. God is the one you should worship. Rev 22:10 Don't keep the prophecies in this book a secret. These things will happen soon. Rev 22:11 Evil people will keep on being evil, and everyone who is dirty-minded will still be dirty-minded. But good people will keep on doing right, and God's people will always be holy. Rev 22:12 Then I was told: I am coming soon! And when I come, I will reward everyone for what they have done. Rev 22:13 I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. Rev 22:14 God will bless all who have washed their robes. They will each have the right to eat fruit from the tree that gives life, and they can enter the gates of the city. Rev 22:15 But outside the city will be dogs, witches, immoral people, murderers, idol worshipers, and everyone who loves to tell lies and do wrong. Rev 22:16 I am Jesus! And I am the one who sent my angel to tell all of you these things for the churches. I am David's Great Descendant, and I am also the bright morning star. Rev 22:17 The Spirit and the bride say, "Come!" Everyone who hears this should say, "Come!" If you are thirsty, come! If you want life-giving water, come and take it. It's free! Rev 22:18 Here is my warning for everyone who hears the prophecies in this book: If you add anything to them, God will make you suffer all the terrible troubles written in this book. Rev 22:19 If you take anything away from these prophecies, God will not let you have part in the life-giving tree and in the holy city described in this book. Rev 22:20 The one who has spoken these things says, "I am coming soon!" So, Lord Jesus, please come soon! Rev 22:21 I pray that the Lord Jesus will be kind to all of you.
AMEN
Chuck
Frank responds:
Hi Chuck,
I need to first point out that you never directly addressed the Prot Pickle question. In order to answer the question, you need to cite from the bible, where Jesus or an Apostle give a command which states that at a later date, all of what we are to believe will be condensed to writing and that we will no longer need to stand firm in the oral Tradition which Paul speaks of in 2Thes2:15.
I believe your entire answer is based on several faulty assumptions which I will try to briefly address in my response.
Erroneous Positions Held by Protestants
* The Bible contains everything that Jesus and the Apostles taught orally
* The Canon of the Bible was common knowledge by the first Christians
* Jesus and the Apostles taught "sola scriptura"
* The Early Christians each owned their own personal bible
The Bible Contains
Everything that Jesus and the Apostles Taught Orally
All Scripture is inspired. (2Tim3:16). To jump to the
conclusion as you do that ONLY Scripture is inspired of God is
faulty reasoning on your part. To demonstrate further,
let's look at the following statement:
TRUE: All Italians are human beings. (All Scripture is inspired.)
If we use the same reasoning as you do, the following statement would also be true:
FALSE: All human beings are Italians. (All inspired public revelation is Scripture.)
Just because all Italians are human beings doesn't necessarily mean all human beings are Italians. The same can be applied to Scripture. Just because all Scripture is inspired doesn't mean that Scripture alone is inspired.
As a Christian, I'm sure you would agree that we are required to believe EVERYTHING that comes forth from the mouth of God.
Matt 4:4 Jesus answered, "It is written: `Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'"
We are told that Jesus taught about the kingdom of God for 40 days after his resurrection:
Acts 1:3 . He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God.
What we don't find is what he specifically taught at that time. Remember, we are talking about 40 DAYS of teaching! That's a tremendous amount of words which the book of Acts doesn't record and neither does the rest of the bible. What specifically did Jesus teach about at this time and where are these words recorded word for word? According to Scripture, we are told that none of Jesus' words would pass away but they would always be preserved for us:
Luke 21:33 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.
Since the words spoken by Jesus over that 40 day period aren't recorded in the bible... yet we are required to live by them, and since Jesus promised that these words would never pass away, therefore they must be preserved somewhere other than the bible. The answer to their whereabouts is what the Catholic Church calls Sacred Tradition. Read an excellent article on this topic: Tradition and Living Magisterium
Besides being an unreasonable
assumption on your part, sola scriptura isn't taught
anywhere in the bible itself. Because of this,
it is a self-defeating proposition which should be rejected for
what it is...a tradition of man.
The Canon of the Bible Was
Common Knowledge by First Christians
Many Protestants seem to believe that from Pentecost on, the
Church had a complete bible, nicely bound in one book, that they
could bring with them and give to all potential converts.
They wish to imagine that the Holy Spirit descended on the
Apostles in the Upper Room in the form of a KJV bible instead of
in the form of tongues of fire which clearly signified that the
Gospel should be spread by preaching and not by writing and
distributing of bibles which everyone could interpret for
themselves. After Jesus' death and Resurrection, the
Apostles went forth preaching and teaching and making disciples
of all nations, just as Jesus had instructed them to do.
Matt28: 19: Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:
20: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.Mk:16:15: And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.
Eventually a few wrote down an account of Jesus' life and others wrote letters to communities they had evangelized that needed to be strengthened or corrected in one way or another. These letters weren't meant to be complete catechisms but were written for folks who were already Christians. Eventually, certain writings which were universally accepted as authentic and written by an Apostle began being read in the Churches. Besides these though, there were some which weren't universally accepted but were still being read in certain places such as the epistles of St. James, Jude, 2Peter, 2John, 3John, Hebrews and the book of Revelation which you quoted in your email. There were also other books being read such as the "Didache" and the "Sheperd of Hermas". The Church had to be very careful because there were even counterfeit letters being circulated claiming to be written by this or that Apostle. That is why Paul makes a point about his own handwriting at the end of 2Thes. How was an individual to know what was the inspired word of God and what wasn't? Which books and letters should be included with the OT to make up what we call the Christian bible today? Who was to make this important decision? Should it be left to every new convert to decide for him or herself? Not at all. Inspiration is a matter of divine revelation which can only be known by God and those who God chooses to reveal it to. It can't be proven or revealed by mere human means and research. Just as Peter, given a revelation by the Father, spoke for the rest of the Apostles and discerned the identity of the Word of God in Matt16:18, so also did his successors recognize the written word of God later on. It wasn't until the Council of Carthage in 397A.D. that we find the Church identifying the canon of Scripture which is identical to the one we have in our bibles today. And what was one of the measuring rods to determine what was canonical and what wasn't? Sacred Tradition! If a Protestant wishes to quote from the NT as the Word of God, he must be prepared to tell us on what authority he is basing his certainty that it truly is the Word of God. You can't have the Bible without the Church. To reject one is to discredit the other.
As St. Augustine said in 394A.D.: "I would not believe in the Gospel myself if the authority of the Catholic Church did not influence me to do so." (Against the Letter of Mani, 5, 6.)
Jesus and the Apostles
Taught "Sola Scriptura"
The Catholic Church teaches that no new public Revelation was
given after the death of the last Apostle. I have met few
Protestants who deny this fact, which in their assent, never
realize that they would be hard pressed finding this teaching in
the bible. Be that as it may, how could the Apostles teach
sola scriptura while new revelation was still being given?
They couldn't. That means that any verse used by
Protestants today to try and justify "sola scriptura"
is merely a twisting and distorting of Scripture to mean
something it didn't mean at the time of Christ and the
Apostles. The Bible's meaning can't change. If
it wasn't taught from the very beginning and was a novel idea
introduced later on, how could you possibly accept it as divine
revelation?
The Early Christians Each
Owned Their Own Bible
Another assumption on your part is that the early Christians each
owned their own personal bible which they brought with them to
every bible study. Besides the fact which we already
mentioned that the books of the NT weren't actually brought
together until 397A.D., we also must keep in mind that the
printing press wasn't invented until the year 1438 (Gutenberg by
the way, who invented printing, was a Catholic himself).
That means that for 1400 years after Christ, the bible wasn't
being printed and mass produced. Copies of bibles had to be
made by hand by monks and nuns, and was a very tedious job as you
could imagine. Because of this, bibles were extremely
expensive and hard to come by. Churches and monasteries
were usually the only ones that owned a copy and these were kept
chained, not to restrict the public from viewing them but to
enable as many as possible to it's use, just as we do with phone
books at telephone booths today.
Frank Jerry
The Catholic Legate
February 17, 2005