Catholics dont accept the authority of Scripture. Catholics believe the Bible is Gods inspired Word (cf. 2 Tim. 3:16) . Catholic laity, priests, bishops and popes have quoted the Bible countless times for almost 2,000 years! Even Martin Luther, who started the Protestant movement, gave back-handed credit to the papist Church for saving the Biblical canon (books) from pagan destruction during the dark ages. It is worth noting that the original King James Version (KJV or AV) in 1611 had the seven Catholic books from the Old Testament (called 12 Apocryphal books by Protestants); these books were later removed (see Rev. 22:18-19!) and are now missing in many Protestant Bibles. What Catholics dispute is the idea that Scripture is the sole authority (sola scriptura), since that contradicts the Bible: no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of personal interpretation (2 Pt.1:20 ; prophecy can mean prediction as well as revelation, a teaching). An open-minded person must ask: if the Bible isnt personally interpreted, who does the interpretation? The Bible gives us a clue, in Acts 8:30-31 , where an ordained deacon of the Church is teaching the meaning of Gods Word. Luke 24:32 reports that Jesus taught His Disciples the meaning of the Bible: Were not our hearts burning while He spoke on the way and opened the Scriptures to us? The devil (cf. Mt. 4:6) , confused or false teachers (cf. 2 Pt. 3:16) can twist the Bibles meaning. And lets get our noggins working for a minute - if the Bible was the sole authority for believers, then where was the authority for Christians in the centuries before the Bible was printed? We also know from history that it was decades before the New Testament was written, years after Christ died. Are we to believe that there was no authority during those years? Or that the only authority was the Old Testament? Jesus gave us His Church as the authority (Mt. 16:18, Mt. 18:18, Lk. 10:16, 1 Tim. 3:15) , and the Church is bound and directed by the Holy Spirit (Jn. 16:13) to teach only the truth, not the opinions and desires of men. Keep in mind that the sinfulness of people in the Church doesnt negate this promise by God, since we are all sinners (see Rm. 3:23) seeking to work out our salvation (Phil 2:12) .
Posted on: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 05:55:15 +0000