Doctrine Continues! SOLA SCRIPTURA and the like

Ok…so I’m not so good with keeping up with the ole blog! I may be a few months off my mark for getting these entries in, but I’ll get there eventually! Anyway, I want to try a new approach. The other “doctrine” posts have taken me several hours to complete (which may be why I haven’t been as faithful to it as I should!), so I’m going to TRY to not be so technical on this post and see how that works! Here’s the thing. I’m not a trained apologist like the incredible folks at Catholic Answers. (NOTE – If you ever need to know ANYTHING about the Catholic Church, try listening to Catholic Answers Live or visiting Catholic.com!) What I am, is a man who is in love with the Catholic faith, so that’s really what my blog should be about: telling you what the Church is about and why I love it! That said, off we go to explore the ever-argued topic of “Sola Scriptura”!

~cracks knuckles~

During my years of life BC (Before Catholicism), I was a strict believer in what I thought was “Sola Scriptura” (Scriptrue Alone) which means that everything I believed concerning God and my faith came from Scripture. As it turns out, that was incorrect. What I actually believed, and what most Pentecostals believe, is called “Prima Scriptura” (Scripture First). This means that there are other sources of acceptable guidance besides scripture (i.e., your pastor, perhaps a message that comes by tongues and interpretation, the inner direction of the Holy Ghost in a person, etc) but all of these things are completely secondary to and must be tested by Scripture. For example: Let’s say that Pastor Smith says, “We need to do some fasting. Everyone please fast this week from _____.” Perhaps, the Holy Spirit speaks during the service and calls the church to fast and pray. OR maybe someone just feels in their heart that they should. The message is the same. “Fast and pray.” Now the Scriptures don’t say, “First Tabernacle Church of the Mighty Holy Ghost and Fire Baptized Believers in the Liberating Power of Jesus Name International Incorporated, LLC must fast the week of May 23, 2010 – May 30, 2010.” [ps…for those of you not familiar with Pentecostal humor, I made that church name up for example purposes. J] However, the Bible does teach us to fast, so it is perfectly acceptable to obey that guidance from the pastor and/or Holy Spirit. Conversely, if a pastor recommends or a person feels an inner urge to do something contrary to what scripture teaches as acceptable, then that guidance should be questioned because the Scripture is a higher authority than any man or feeling. Now that we established the difference between these two lines of thought, I will point out that while they both have admirable qualities, they are not the teaching of the Catholic Church.

The Church teaches something called “Sola Dei Verbum” (The Word of God Alone). As much as I love Latin and its translation, lets break it down a little. Shall we?

When I first heard of “The Word of God Alone”, I thought. “Right! Scripture Alone!”. While the concepts seem to be the same, they are actually quite different in doctrinal terms. You see, as Catholics, we believe that the Word of God consists of Scripture PLUS tradition. * pausing to allow ample time for the non-Catholics to cringe a bit before continuing * Allow me to explain via an entirely too brief look at how Church teaching has looked throughout the years. Jesus, who is THE WORD of God (John 1:1), taught the apostles the Truth about God. Of course, Jesus is also the Truth. So basically, Jesus taught the apostles [about] Himself! Then when he was about to ascend into Heaven, He told them, “Go therefore and teach all nations…teaching them to observe ALL that I have commanded you.” (St. Matthew 28:19) The book of Acts records a good deal of these first few years of the Church’s history. Knowing, that they were given the ability and obligation to teach THE faith with authority, the apostles did so by writing letters to the Churches AND preaching to them “in person”. Was their teaching less important if they didn’t write it down first? Of course not! Their teaching concerning Christ and His Church was infallible whether written or spoken and the churches were required to obey BOTH the written and spoken directions of the apostles (II Thessalonians 2:15). As the Church grew more men were ordained to take the care of the souls of the new faithful. (See Acts 1:15-26 to learn that the authority of the apostles, that of a Bishop, could, can, and must be passed on to others.) And that practice of ordaining new Bishops to keep, uphold, protect, and pass on the faith received from Jesus Himself continues today! That means that every validly ordained Catholic Bishop was ordained by someone who was ordained by someone who was ordained by someone else who was ordained by someone….who was ordained by an apostle who was commissioned by CHRIST! That is a POWERFUL testimony to the identity of the Catholic Church and her teachings! I said all that to say this [there’s a little more evangelical humor for you…if you don’t get it, don’t worry about it lol]: Jesus told the apostles to PREACH and they did, and their successors still are! Thankfully, the original leaders of the Church were moved by Holy Spirit to write as well as speak the truth about the Truth!

So why not believe in Sola/Prima Scriptura? There are many reasons, but I will just offer a few to get you started thinking. J First of all, if EVERYTHING that we believe must come from Scripture, then Scripture must say that, and it doesn’t. What it DOES say is to obey what is preached and written from the apostles. There was no indication that this COMMAND WRITTEN IN SCRIPTURE would be rescinded when the canon of scripture was completed. But how can we obey the unwritten “traditions and commands” of the apostles if we have no living link to them? We couldn’t if we didn’t have the Catholic Church to preserve and hand them down to us.

Secondly, if EVERYTHING we believe must come from Scripture, then the first 1500 years or so of Christians are lost! The canon (or official set of books) or Scripture wasn’t officially determined and declared “unalterable” in until the Council of Trent in 1546! And that was most likely because Martin Luther decided to “decanonize” some of the books that had been commonly accepted as scriptural since the 300s. So how did people learn the Word of God before the books were officially decided on and before most people were able to read and afford their own copy of the Bible? They went to Mass! That’s right! Every Sunday Mass has an Old Testament reading, a reading from the Psalms, a reading from the Epistles or the Book of Acts, AND a reading from the Gospels. Granted, the number and/or order of the readings were most likely different, but the principle stands that the CHURCH has been the way people learned truth throughout church history.

Thirdly, scripture is NOT the foundation of truth! THE CHURCH IS THE FOUNDATION OF THE TRUTH! (I Tim 3:15) Thus the Church is NOT a product of Scripture. Rather, the Scripture is a work of the Holy Spirit THROUGH the Church.

Finally, without the Church, one is left to interpret the Scripture privately, which St Peter forbids as destructive! (II Peter 1:20, 3:16). Take for instance the number of non-Catholic denominations—over THIRTY THOUSAND!!! I would venture to say that almost every one of them would say that they take scripture for their final authority for all things doctrinal, and yet there is almost no agreement between them on issues of baptism, salvation, Heaven, Hell, and sin! The Bible is not enough on its own…we must have a proper interpretation of it for it to benefit us at all. For “how can I [understand the scriptures] unless someone teaches me?” (Acts 8:30-31).

OK…well I think my soapbox is about to collapse! haha Anyway, for those of you who don’t know me personally, please understand that everything I write, even if its passionately presented, is written with love. I’m not writing out of hatred of others or a belief that they are stupid. I just really REALLY believe these things and want to share them with others.

May God grant us all the grace to believe “the Truth, the Whole Truth, and nothing but the Truth”!

The Church (part I)

OK! FINALLY! I decided to stop trying to lay this out perfectly and just show you what was going through my head at the time that I was considering the claims of the Roman Catholic Church. Like I said before, this is a multi-faceted topic, but I’ll eventually get it all done! First you’ll need a little background information. The basic idea of Church History in the Apostolic movement (which I was a part of) is that from the day of Pentecost until sometime after the death of the Apostles, Christianity looked like the modern day Apostolic Pentecostal churches. In other words, the belief is that the Apostles and most likely their successors taught the doctrines of “the Oneness of God” (as opposed to the doctrine of the Holy Trinity), salvation by repentance, baptism in the name of Jesus Christ (as opposed to baptism using the Trinitarian formula “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”), and reception of the “Baptism of the Holy Ghost (as evidenced by speaking in other tongues)”. Then at some point, the greatest majority of believers left the original teachings of Jesus and the Apostles. Some feel that this happened around the time of the Council of Nicea because this is when the doctrine of the Holy Trinity was “ironed out” and defined in response to the Arian heresy. I’m not sure if that particular time line was wide-spread, but I tended to lean toward that view personally. (Of course, most Oneness believers wouldn’t say that the doctrine was “ironed out” then as most believe that it was invented at that time.) Following this thought process, there remained small numbers of people who believed these doctrines through-out history, until just before the Azusa Street Revival in the early 1900s. At this time, people in the United States began to seek and experience the “Baptism of the Holy Ghost” again. A few years later, the Oneness Pentecostals “reappeared” on the scene in larger numbers and have continued to grow since then.

I had long since accepted these beliefs whole-heartedly as well as the views of Church History. Really though, history did not really play a significant role in my beliefs or the beliefs of my fellow Apostolics, because for us, Scripture was the only acceptable source of faith and doctrine.

As I read through “Rome Sweet Home” by Scott and Kimberly Hahn (a book I HIGHLY recommend for anyone who desires an in depth look at why someone would convert to Catholicism), I came across a question that forever changed the way I viewed the concept of “church”. Look at Matthew 16:18:

“…on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it.”

Of course I had heard this passage preached many times before, but I had never considered one idea. If the powers of death would not prevail against the church, where did “my church” go for over 1,900 years? I started to go through Church History, and there just was not a consistent presence of Oneness Pentecostalism to be found! If indeed the Apostolic movement is a continuation of the Church of the New Testament, how had it experienced such growth as to see thousands of people baptized in one day on at least two occasions and to have pagan rulers acknowledge that they had “turned the world upside down” only to drop to such small numbers that they couldn’t even be recorded as existing for almost 2,000 years?! Admittedly, there were a few groups who held similar one or two similarities here and there to the Oneness movement of today, but none that could be considered “Apostolic”. The closest was Sabellius in the 200s, but even they disappeared after a while. There just is no “church” in history that resembles today’s Apostolic churches against which the “powers of death” did not prevail.

Obviously, I was not happy about this. I had to ask the question now, “If we aren’t the New Testament Church, then who is?” Even though in the back of my mind, I knew the answer, I was not ready at all to admit it!

I continued to study and read books written by Catholics, Non-Catholics, Apostolics, and even Anti-Catholics. I still could only draw one conclusion. The only Church that has existed since the very beginning of Christianity and continues on today very much the same in structure and in major doctrine is the Roman Catholic Church! She still believes and teaches the traditions that have been handed down to her whether written or orally. She still operates under the leadership of Bishops, Priests (which the NT sometimes calls Elders) and Deacons, and councils. She still knows mercy through men of God who are ambassadors of reconciliation and who forgive sin in the name of Christ. She still believes and relies on the Body and Blood of Christ made present in the Eucharist, and she still baptizes for remission of sins as Christ commanded. And she will continue to do so until her bridegroom, the Lord Jesus Christ, returns in glory! Thanks be to God!

Next up on menu of doctrines about “The Church” will be the question of “Sola Scriptura”.