22 September, 2009

Discussion with St. Alan servant of Jesus about the authority of the Church versus the Bible

(St. Alan servant of Jesus) Jesus said that all , everyone, who believes in Him will be saved.

John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

No where in the Inspired Scriptures does Jesus say only those in the catholic church will be saved. You still do not understand it. Every person in the world who believes in Jesus are saved and they all are going to heaven. Even in the book of Revelation Jesus talks about 7 different church's that follow Him.

(Cristoiglesia) Yes Jesus promises salvific grace to those that believe in Him and endure in their faith to final salvation. Just as John 3:16 says in the Greek one must endure or continue to believe. But belief alone is not enough because if it was even the demons would be saved as they certainly do believe but reject the grace of God. Jesus provided one path to salvation and that is through His Church. All who are saved are a part of His Church and among these are those who are within His visible Church and those who are part of His invisible Church but are not obedient to it out of ignorance to God’s will. To the latter group salvation will be difficult as they are outside of the grace to endure provided by the Sacraments of our Lord through His Church. So, there may be those saved outside of His visible Church but not without His Church.

The Churches spoken of in Revelation are Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. They are all congregations of the Catholic Church which is Christ’s Church. Revelations is not endorsing the possibility that other churches and especially the man-made Protestant churches will be saved but instead that some may be saved within these disobedient sects in spite of their refusal of the grace available in His Church the Catholic Church.

(St. Alan servant of Jesus) 2 Timothy 3:16-17 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.

(Cristoiglesia) Yes, the Catholic Church wrote those words and we truly believe them. But you will notice that those words are not an endorsement for Scripture alone. And, you must remember that Jesus gave all teaching authority to His Church and the writing and canonization of Scripture is done under the authority given by Christ to teach. The Scriptures were written by the Church to be used and understood in the community of the Church and not for private interpretation outside of the teaching authority given by Christ. Nowhere will you see in Scriptures that what is contained is the entirety or fullness of Christ’s teaching. In fact the Scriptures tell us that if all that Jesus taught was written down that all the books in the world could not contain His teaching. But, through the authority He left, His Church, the fullness of His teaching is promised through apostolic succession.

(St. Alan servant of Jesus) Jesus gave the Bible to everybody, to read and study. The catholic church does not own the Bible, it came from the Holy Spirit. Jesus intended that everyone read the Bible for the building up of the believer.

(Cristoiglesia) The Church wrote the Bible (New Testament) for teaching within the Church. It had human authors who were inspired by the Holy Spirit. The Church is the regula fidei and not the Bible. Outside of the Church the Bible can easily be a tool of Satan and a justification for heresy as we see in the 30,000+ Protestant schismatic sects which are increasing exponentially. But I will agree that we should all read the Bible and study its message to mankind. But explicit in the Bible is the teaching that it is the Church to which all authority is given and not to the Bible which is the product of the Church and about the Church. God’s true Church is not the product of the Bible as some Protestants erroneously assume.

(St. Alan servant of Jesus) When the catholic church refused to let the common man read the Bible that's when Jesus brought very godly people like Martin Luther, William Tyndale, and others to spread the truth among the believers. Jesus used these great men and others to bring the Bible to them because the catholic church refused to spread the word of God.

The catholic church had the Bible removed from them by God and God put the Bible in the hands of the believers to study and to grow.

(Cristoiglesia) First of all the statement you make that the Church refused to let the common man read the Bible is entirely and utterly false. Your statement is a lie designed to cause division that comes straight from the author of confusion and those spreading this lie are Satan’s tool. Martin Luther and William Tyndale were both heretics and not godly men. They chose to spread division and heresy instead of truth. The Church has always protected and spread God’s Word in spite of the attacks of heretics like Luther and Tyndale.

Contrary to what you say the Bible has never been kept from anyone by the Church but the opposite in true. Think about it, why would we write the New Testament and canonize the entirety of the Christian Scriptures and then try to restrict anyone from its teaching? We did not and never will. We are the only Church that teaches the entirety of the Bible and the only Church that has the legitimate claim to be a true Bible Church in that nothing we teach is in any way contradictory to Scriptures. No one else can say the same. God bless!

In Christ
Fr. Joseph

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