Nice thoughts.... BUT!!!!
Nick01 There IS NO SCRIPTURES saying>>> "The Scriptures are the ultimate and final authority"!!! None can be found!!!
Where is the verse about the church being the ultimate source of teaching on behalf of God, let alone Rome? I have yet to see it. If you're going to set up strawman criteria for your argument, we will get nowhere fast. IF you actually want to sit down and discuss the teachings of the apostles, that is something else.
Refuse to listen to the Church? Then the scriptures tell you; "You are a PAGAN!!!"
Pagan: A person OUTSIDE of the body of God!
Never said I don't listen to the church. I just said I don't recognise, and neither did the Reformers recognise, the authority of the church when it speaks without the authority of the Scriptures. I think your definition of pagan is a bit flimsy, in any case.
Scriptures are very very clear.... >> The Church Jesus established is "The Pillar and the foundation of truth!"
Scriptures tell you.. The CHURCH makes known the wisdom of God!!!
What is a pillar other than that which supports the truth? I AGREE that the church Jesus established is the pillar and the foundation of truth. unfortunately, it does not follow that therefore the church is the ultimate authority of truth. In fact, the whole idea of a pillar assumes an actual truth that the pillar supports. Where did the early church derive their teaching authority from? The apostolic deposit, contained in what we call the New Testament.
Although I am less than the least of all the Lord’s people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the boundless riches of Christ,
9 and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things.10 His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms,11 according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Yep. I agree What's your point? Protestants also believe that the church is called to 'make God's wisdom known', although here Paul seems to have his mind on heavenly authorities (perhaps angels?). Anyway, I'm not at all sure what you think this passage is saying in support of your argument.
Clearly FROM THE SCRIPTURES >> The CHURCH is the Body of Jesus!
Bingo.
Clearly the scriptures are the words of Jesus... Jesus tells you; CHURCH TEACHES and Church SAVES!!!
Hmm, not at all sure church saves. Paul's point in Ephesians 3 is Christians making known God's wisdom and the riches of Christ, the fresh revelation of God that was not known previously, but has been made known to all, Gentile and Jew. The church preaches that gospel proclamation, yes, but I don't think you've established anything close to the church actually doing the final 'saving' (as borderline irrelevant to the discussion this already is)
Church TEACHES, the scriptures cannot teach, teachers TEACH, they use books!
Yep. I'm sure you would agree that the Scriptures are such a book for teaching, and are particularly highlighted by Paul in 1 Timothy. Also, the Holy Spirit teaches us, reminding us of what Jesus said, as Jesus himself promised He would do. But again, not sure what point you're trying to make.
Jesus tells you "IN HIS SCRIPTURES"; The gates of hell will NOT defeat the CHURCH!
Matthew 16:18
So I tell you, you are Peter. On this rock I will build my church, and the power of death will not be able to defeat it.
Yep.
The scriptures were decided to be INSPIRED by the Catholic Church in 400 A.D. after Three Catholic CHURCH Councils!!
Nope. Obviously people believe at least SOME of the NT was inspired before then, otherwise all the ecumenical councils would have been jabbering about nothing. Instead, most of them argued about the interpretation of Scripture. The Fathers all quote Scripture in order to make their point, and rarely teach purely from their own authority or that of some ethereal oral tradition.
In any case, most of them were not run by Rome, but were run by Constantine and his successors who resided in the East of the Empire (Constantinople) rather than Rome itself. Most of the important figures of the early councils (those before the 5th century) were from the Eastern or Middle Eastern churches (such as Alexandria), and by the time Rome was running its own Councils, much of the Eastern parts of the church had split away.
We can argue all you like about WHEN EXACTLY everyone agreed on which books were inspired, but that doesn't change the fact that people already assumed inspiration in NT texts. I mean, goodness, what was Marcion doing, drawing up heretical canon lists, if people didn't really care about the authority of the written Scriptures until hundreds of years later.
Bishops in the Catholic Church weeded out the manuscripts not considered to be useful for the Celebration of Liturgy then they put the 73 manuscripts into one book she named "The Bible!"
HA! I don't even know what to say about this - first of all, you do realise we have manuscripts from before the Roman ecumenical councils, yes? We have BIBLES from before them. What they were called is irrelevant (though I believe Chrysotom may have made a reference to biblia - in Greek of course - in the third century). Feel free to come back to this if you have some actual historical bones to put on your assertions.
For 400 years there was NO Bible.... Just many hundreds of Manuscripts!!
a) not strictly true. We have evidence of NT documents being collected together before 400 AD, even if the listing is not always identical to that of current established canons. We have complete Bibles (almost certainly made in the Eastern part of the empire) from about 330 AD.
b) It actually doesn't matter if there was a single omnibus called the Bible. What matters is where did people get there doctrinal authority from?
Ignatius of Antioch A friend of the Apostle John wrote this...
"Just as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church" (Letter to the Smyrneans 8:2 [A.D. 110]).
Nick01 "Just as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church!"
Catholic means universal - it comes from the Greek word καθόλου, which basically means 'in regards to the whole' or as a synonym of generally. That is how Ignatius uses it - there is nothing in the passage indicating a reference specifically to a Church in Rome (which would be odd, seeing as Smyrna is in modern day Turkey, in the Eastern Roman Empire and with very little connection to Rome). It only later (MUCH later) came into use as a shortened term for the RCC, mostly when Rome split from the Eastern churches. Since then, the term has become even more confusing, because there isn't even a single church in Rome - there are Protestants there too!