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Bible Questions and Spiritual Discussion
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GUS SUPAN
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11/14/2013 19:42 |
Please tell me where do you go to determine truth? The Bible says that man shall not live by bread alone but by EVERY WORD that proceeds out of the mouth of a God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) And further that ALL Scripture is breath by God and is profitable for doctrine......that the man of God may be fully equipped for every good work. All scripture is the BIble, Old and New Testaments. If Jesus is Truth, and He is the Word, and His word is Truth. Every word is inspired by Him. It is His Scripture. That is where all my Conversations start and end. Again what is your bases of determining truth?
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Catholica
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11/15/2013 09:51 |
To phrase it simply, and most universally, my source for truth is witnesses of Jesus. As is yours, if you consider where the Bible came from. Jesus wrote no scripture; only witnesses wrote scripture, or those people to whom the witnesses witnessed to.
For example, how do we know the details of the early life of Jesus? None of the apostles were around. This witness is likely from Mary whom Jesus placed in the care of John. Where did Luke get his information? Most likely it is from an amalgamation of witnesses to the events recorded in the gospel.
The scriptures, therefore, are an output of the work of witnessing. Thus as we trust the scriptures we first place our trust in witnesses. And that is reasonable, as Jesus said, "Whoever hears you hears me" (Luke 10:16). Likely much of Luke's work was based on first hand witnesses.
And like you wrote, we should live upon every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. But it is a mistake to conflate that with just the Bible. The early Church did not have the entire NT as we have today. There was great discussion on what the canon should be, one that went on for hundreds of years. And even after hundreds of years there was only general consensus on what was scripture and what was not.
During that time, the gospel of Jesus was being passed on by means of witnesses. A person who was witnessed to by a witness became a witness of Jesus, even if they weren't there with Jesus first hand. And so all that receive that gospel today become witnesses of Jesus.
We are fortunate in this day and age to have the scriptures, as they greatly enrich our faith and help us to be even better witnesses for Jesus. And it is a great deposit of Truth that is truly precious.
Yet that Bible is not a living document or a living witness. The words themselves can be living, true. They can bring great benefit to the Christian and are profitable for doctrine. Yet they require interpretation. And that is where I get to my source of truth.
When I ponder this question I often think of the Constitution of the United States. It is not an inspired document, of course, but it is a document still the same. The fathers of our country had an idea of what they wanted to base our country upon when they wrote the constitution. However written words can be twisted in any document. They are not a perfect means of conveying information. They can be "twisted" or misinterpreted easily. That is why our country has a court system, so that the constitution can retain it's correct interpretation, and we can continue to understand the constitution in the way the founding fathers intended it.
Every written document is the same. It has an author, it has it's content, and it requires interpretation. For some "documents" or works, such as art or music, the interpretation of that work is intentionally left up to the person receiving it. But that is not so for law documents, and it is certainly not true for the Bible, which specifically says that people twist the scriptures.
To say that a person's source of truth "begins and ends with the scriptures" is a noble idea and seems to have great merit, and truly it is something that we may indeed profit from, but as a basis and foundation of what is truth of the gospel, everyone gathers some of their beliefs from the doctrines passed down from before them by witnesses. And this is what Jesus intended, when He told the apostles to "go forth and teach" in Matthew 28. We were meant to learn of Jesus through their witness and teaching. Each one of us. Even those of us who were not around while the apostles still lived. Jesus planned for and the Church relied on that kind of witness to work in concert with the scriptures which he inspired through the ages. And that is how we know the gospel today.
Even early on certain unscrupulous people tried to undermine the gospel message being proclaimed by the Church. Some denied the humanity of Christ. Some denied the divinity of Christ and his miracles. Some portrayed Christ as some sort of demi-god or created god. So there was a clear need for some arbiter of the true Gospel message.
AND there was a need for someone to authoritatively define which works were to be held as inspired scripture, which I'm sure you were aware. Even in the orthodox church (ignoring, for example, the gnostic works) there were some works which were read in church often which didn't end up being scripture. These were useful and good works but were determined to not be inspired. And there were other works for which there was disagreement on their inspiration which were later deemed inspired.
Thus the early Church depended a great deal on the witnesses, and the witnesses of witnesses, to make a ruling on doctrine and even on scripture itself. That is how Jesus founded His Church, which is why He HAD to send the Holy Spirit to guide it. Because just as the Supreme Court today seems to be split and failing to correctly interpret the Constitution, so any purely human group would likewise fail to make correct decisions, especially when it comes to ruling on what truth is divinely revealed, which is a task that can only be correctly accomplished by God.
Thus in a roundabout way, I return to my answer, which is that I trust the witnesses of the early Church and the message which they proclaimed through their teaching as my source of truth, which in turn guides me to interpret scripture, which is Truth that must be interpreted, and is correctly interpreted only in light of that Gospel which was passed down through a living authority which was necessarily and truly guided by the Holy Spirit.
So in turn, since this is (I assume) a two-way conversation, I return some questions your way. What is your basis for believing that the books contained in the Holy Scriptures are in fact inspired? What is your basis for not believing that other pious works containing true doctrine are not inspired? Who is your arbiter when someone else who also uses the same basis for truth as you, starting and ending with His Scripture, comes to a contradicting conclusion about what the Word actually is saying?
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Davidwayne Lackey
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11/16/2013 20:01 |
1Jn 2:27 But you have received the Holy Spirit, and He lives within you, so you don't need anyone to teach you what is true. For the Spirit teaches you everything you need to know, and what He teaches is true—it is not a lie. So just as He has taught you, remain in fellowship with Christ.
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Catholica
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11/18/2013 11:44 |
Hi Davidwayne,
Although a verse like that (by itself as written) would be a pretty good argument for individual inspiration by the Holy Spirit, I can't find many Bibles except the NLT which translate it that way. Most use the word "anointing" rather than "the Holy Spirit" which seems like a pretty big discrepancy.
Here is the context as written in the NLT:
1 John 2:24-27
24 So you must remain faithful to what you have been taught from the beginning. If you do, you will remain in fellowship with the Son and with the Father.
25 And in this fellowship we enjoy the eternal life he promised us.
26 I am writing these things to warn you about those who want to lead you astray.
27 But you have received the Holy Spirit,[h] and he lives within you, so you don’t need anyone to teach you what is true. For the Spirit[i] teaches you everything you need to know, and what he teaches is true—it is not a lie. So just as he has taught you, remain in fellowship with Christ.
[h] 2:27a Greek the anointing from him.
[i] 2:27b Greek the anointing.
v 24 speaks about being "taught from the beginning". So it seems that the audience has already received the teaching from the apostles. And now that they have been taught that gospel and received this anointing, THEN they can know the truth taught from that Spirit/anointing.
So still, this audience receives first the gospel (and an anointing) through the witnesses.
However I don't believe that, if one is taught from false witnesses, that they would be equally able to accomplish this verse, which adjures them to "remain faithful to what they have been taught". It seems that the spirit inside of them would be contradicting the false teaching they received. And if so, they should not "remain faithful" to that false teaching, but that idea contradicts scripture, the word of God. Thus to really be able to live out this particular command of scripture, one has to rely on the fact that his teaching from the beginning was correct. Otherwise it all falls apart, leaving people wondering whether they really have this "spirit" within them (or perhaps it is a false spirit) or if this Spirit within them is telling them to abandon what they learned. And that individual can not decide for himself which one he is in. He still needs someone else.
And there are many false witnesses who can teach something that sounds like its scriptural but is counter to the scriptures, as scripture attests. So the scripture-sounding-ness of someone's teaching is itself not even a good measure, because it is still up to the individual to decide.
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Davidwayne Lackey
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11/18/2013 22:05 |
Actually Andre I don't think of 1 John 2:27 as an argument for individual inspiration. I think of it as the way to know truth. It is only by the teaching of The Holy Spirit that we can discern anything, especially truth as it concerns proper understanding of Scripture which is truth.
You said that "taught from the beginning" seams to mean that the audience had already received the teaching from the Apostles and I agree that is true. Then you go on to say that they have been taught that Gospel and received the anointing. Then they can know the truth from that Spirit/anointing. So this audience receives first the Gospel, and anointing, through the witnesses.
Actually it was quite a while after they were taught before they received the anointing of The Holy Spirit. So the teaching and the anointing did not come together at the same time and the two are not mutually exclusive. So this I don't agree with and apparently you don't either. So, so far we agree even if we are coming at it from different angles.
We also agree that there are many false witnesses that teach good sounding false doctrine. I disagree however that it is up to the individual to decide what is truth. It is not up to the individual to decide ultimately. The problem with that assumption is without the anointing of The Holy Spirit none of us knows how to decide correctly by ourselves no matter who is doing the teaching.
We do not have the advantage of having the Apostles to teach us today. We have only one who can teach us truth without fault or contradiction. The one that Jesus said He would send, that is The Holy Spirit. Unless we have the anointing of The Holy Spirit we do not have access to the truth. We only have access to what we think is truth.
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Matteo Masiello
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11/19/2013 05:53 |
With all due respect to everyone's beliefs, the idea of arguing about who is or who isn't' a "real" Christian is not very helpful. It reminds me of when the disciples are bickering with one another about who is going to benefit in heaven more. I agree there are false witnesses. I personally do not believe in "the" true church (this denomination or that) and which one thinks they are more authentic. I think all churches should be "a" true church to the degree that they live the gospel. I know that we all think that theology is important with its doctrines, dogmas, confessions, creeds, etc. but I don't see any of this in the gospels. I am not very interested in apostolic tradition to the extent that that tradition can be traced in a neat line. If that were true, then the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches have more of an argument that any denomination of Protestantism.
What I have found in my study of ALL of Christian history is that men and women of faith endure to the end, following Paul's admonition. That is all that any one of us can do. I believe that if we are as faithful to living a life in Christ as much as we are capable, then there is no need to prove anything to one another. Our Lord sees us and keeps us in His palm. Early Christianity isn't as simple as some wish to believe, nor do I believe that the "heresies" that are known were demonic. I believe Arius for example was doing the best he thought he was doing and it is a sad thing to see so much pain and suffering come out of that conflict in the name of "unity". If we cannot make peace with our brothers IN CHRIST then we have failed Him.
We are all prisoners of time, space, and cultural and historical context. We need to have more forbearance and patience with one another when it comes to "issues of certainty" of which are illusory. I did not see Jesus asking the thief who was beside him on the Cross about his christology or what atonement theory was "right." In fact, Jesus never really questioned anyone who came to him in sincere and simple faith. Those who came to him double-minded He tried to show them they did not need to be so confused about who He was. It was up to them to figure it out, to see the trees from the forest and if they failed He looked at them with love and compassion. I don't think He gave up on them when they walked away, though how He worked with them is not documented. I do not believe He gives up on any one of us, despite of "beliefs."
God bless all of you. I am new to this forum and I wanted to say hello. I love you all.
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GUS SUPAN
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11/19/2013 08:44 |
CHRISTIAN ?
A Christian is not.......
Every Protestant
Every Catholic
Everyone who calls themselves Christian
Everyone who is baptized
Everyone who goes to church
Everyone who belongs to a church
Everyone who is a member of a denomination
A Christian is......
Everyone who believes Jesus forgave all their sins, past, present , and future.
Everyone who believes they are saved by Christ alone.
Everyone who believes they are saved by grace alone.
Everyone who believes that they are saved through faith alone.
Everyone who believes they are saved through God's Word alone.
Everyone who believes they are saved for God's glory alone.
Everyone who admits they are a sinner.....and
Everyone who acknowledges the need for a Savior....and
Everyone who believes Jesus Christ is that Savior....and Everyone who professes Jesus Christ as Savior AND Lord.
Everyone who purposes in his heart to follow Him.
Augustine John Edward Supan
V 144 (3-30-12)
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Catholica
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11/19/2013 09:27 |
Hi Gus, I'm still hoping that we can have a conversation. Should I wait for your response?
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Catholica
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11/19/2013 09:37 |
Hi Matteo, and welcome to the forum, and it is always good that we are here.
I respect your position and your feelings about whether we should decide who is Christian or not. It is something that I have never taken to or worried myself with. I have a different opinion on the importance of at least maintaining true doctrine, but that is okay, I'm not going to say anything about you for not holding that same opinion, although we could have some interesting conversations (like iron sharpening iron, as Brian likes to say) and maybe come to at least a better understanding of why the other believes a certain way and whether we might consider that position. That what makes these conversations productive.
It is never productive to tell someone that they aren't something that they believe they are. It doesn't do anything but isolate them. We need to be Christ to people to show them how to love more than to argue anyone into a position (though I do believe that truth is also important). I have always tried to take this position in discussions, and I think it leads to healthy relationships that authentically help us lead each other through Christ who comes through us.
In any case, I like how you've introduced yourself to us, and I think that internet forums in general need more people like you, who convey a true attitude of charity, and I appreciate that.
Andre
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Matteo Masiello
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11/19/2013 12:10 |
Hi Andre glad to be here.
Yes, iron sharpening iron.
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