Dear wakeup, Does the Scripture itself say that every doctrine must be in the Scripture alone? Where does the Bible say we go by the Bible alone? If that were true, the Apostles could not have preached Christ, because that would be adding words about Christ to the Bible. But they did preach oral words regarding Christ. These were spoken of in 2 Thess. 2:15. Oral tradition is added to the Bible, and as it is the tradition of God, it, too, comes from God, and is inspired by God the Holy Spirit.
Humbly, I think I must disagree with this or at least say my peace concerning such uneasy statements. It is true that not every good doctrine is found word for word in the Bible but built upon good and necessary inference, however, it is also true that no good doctrine is without its scriptural underpinnings.
Even when the Apostles taught they used scriptures and unlike us, they were
uniquely inspired by the Holy Spirit as well as
instructed by Christ himself.
Don't forget the numerous times that Christ's instructs His Apostles through scripture and experiences of which
are not recorded. Consider the following:
- And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself. (no more is mentioned)
- But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. (assurance that they will recall and teach rightly concerning what he had taught)
- but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you. (and through the Apostle's teaching it is made known to us.)
- And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. (Again, shared by the Apostles from the One was the Word and who would have expounded the scripture or event and its meaning.)
- Therefore, having obtained help from God, to this day I stand, witnessing both to small and great, saying no other things than those which the prophets and Moses said would come. (The apostle's testimony matches their teaching).
All that we have from the Apostles is based on their learning from the MASTER of the WORD. A teaching that is not completely made known to us in the Gospels as evidenced above. However, in faith we do believe that the Spirit brought to mind all those things and those are the things that the Apostles expounded upon.
I don't wish to put to fine a point on it, but I would say that the church's tradition
since the time of the Apostles is to search the scripture and to test the spirits to see if they be of God (of scripture).
This is the point of SOLA SCRIPTURA (scripture alone). Scripture interprets scripture and when building a doctrine it should rest upon the scriptures and not tradition alone.
I hope that I have not misunderstood your meaning,and if so, you have my apology. If not, I offer my counsel conscious of the fact that I have a log in my own eye.
Respectfully Submitted
