The Dividing Line, September 2, 2008

Anyway, I didn't say anything about the debate, but here comes this article. And let me just read you the beginning of this article. You tell me if these are the words of someone who felt the debate went really, really well for their side and that this was you know, I mean, Patrick's debated me twice, and from his perspective, he's won both of them.

He's undefeated. So here's how it started. James White loves to argue. He's a fundamentalist who runs an anti-Catholic ministry, so you'd expect him to be no stranger to controversy, but White's appetite for in-your-face confrontations goes beyond typical anti-Catholic zealotry.

That's just the start, folks. That's just how you start. Now, remember, Patrick knows that we go up and that we deal with all sorts of other issues, but, you know, fundamentalist, anti-Catholic, anti-Catholic is repeated twice in only three sentences.

You've got to start beating that drum early to make sure to poison the minds of your audience. Look, when you hear somebody preaching against the church, then challenge them to debate, and we'll arrange a debate with them.

They're the ones who started this debate stuff, basically, and now they're not really fond of doing it anymore, and maybe as we listen to this, we will see why. But, I mean, the whole article was nothing but a hit piece.

It was incredible at how bad it is, and that's why if you want to see my response to it, it's still at vintage .aomin .org, slash, C-A-T-H-A-N, cathan .html, is the response that I wrote to The White Man's Burden, which was put up on the web in 1994.

And so that's a little bit of the background of the debate that took place. Once again, it took place at a Presbyterian church, Orthodox Presbyterian church, in San Diego. It was a very hot night, as you'll hear from my opening comments.

There was no air conditioning in the building, and the Santa Ana winds were blowing, so it was a very warm evening. But it was well attended, and the subject was, does the Bible teach sola scriptura? Remember, Patrick Madrid and Carl Keating had hammered away on Bill Jackson and Ron Nemeck, where does the Bible teach its own sufficiency?

Now, they won that debate. There's no question about the fact they won that debate. It wasn't even close. It was a wipeout. On any level, it was a wipeout. The people that were debating were not prepared to engage them.

But in this debate, I answered their challenge. And I simply ask you to note, and note one other thing, I have said many, many times, before we start playing this, I have said many, many times, I don't know when it happened, but I am 99 certain that one day, Carl Keating and Patrick Madrid, and maybe Matitix had come along, maybe it was before Matitix came along, I don't know, but one day, in the Catholic Answers offices, they sat around and they said, all right, here's how we're going to approach sola scriptura.

Here's the arguments we're going to use. I've addressed all of the arguments they use in books and things in the past, but here's the arguments we're going to use. And here's our backup plan. In the debates we do, we will wait until our opponent, until the non-Catholic, basically has no more presentation time.

Presentations are over. We will wait until the rebuttal periods or the question and answer period, where you don't have almost any time at all. And this is actually breaking debate rules, because you're not supposed to bring new things up at this point.

You're supposed to be only addressing what's already been presented. But rarely are those particular rules observed. And at that point, we'll throw out the canon. Now, we know our people don't know anything about the canon, and I have to believe these men know the circularity of their own position at this point.

But we'll throw out the canon issue when the other person does not have any opportunity whatsoever to actually respond to it in a meaningful fashion, and then we'll bang away on, he's not responding, he's not responding, he can't respond, he's not responding, and hope that that's what will stick in people's minds.

That's exactly what Madrid does in this debate. He will wait until the second rebuttal period before he ever raises, I don't even have an opportunity at this point to respond to the rebuttal, because I'm going first.

Listen to how he does that. It's not a part of his core presentation. No, no, no. He waits until later on to throw that thing out and start making challenges about, how do you know Matthew wrote Matthew?

Now, one of the fun things is going to be, and there's going to be a number of times where I'm going to interrupt myself and say, you know, today I'd probably say it this way, because this was 15 years ago, and if I haven't learned more about solo scriptura in 15 years, I've written books on the subject now, I've done more debates on the subject, my good brothers David King and William Webster have produced their three-volume Holy Scripture series.

I have the third volume here in my hand. You'll hear Patrick Madrid blustering in his opening statement where he says, I have 52 pages of the early church. I will resist the temptation to bury James in the early church fathers.

I used to have the third volume here. It's over 300 pages long. You know, it is humorous sometimes to listen to the bluster that these gentlemen can produce in defense of the one true church, which is what they're very busy doing.

But it truly, there are times where I go, for example, when he does the Matthew thing, I think my response was appropriate, but the first response I'd give today is, I would quote his own leaders to him, his own leading theologians, who say, we don't know who wrote Matthew.

And when the leading theologians of the various papal commissions say, we don't know who wrote Matthew, to hear Madrid pounding away on, you need to know who wrote Matthew. We know who wrote Matthew because we're the Catholic Church.

We can tell you that. Then to hear the Catholic Church saying, well, not really, you know, again shows the chasm that exists between the scholarship of Roman Catholicism and its apologists because there is a huge chasm between the two.

And so we will be looking at that as we go into it as well. So we start off, we only had 20-minute opening statements. We start off with my 20-minute opening statement. Not sure how much interruption I'll be doing during this particular portion, maybe once or twice, but here is my opening statement from San Diego in 1993.

Good evening. It's good to be with you.

I am very thankful to the Church for allowing us to be here. I need to thank all of you San Diegans. I understand there's a big push on to make this a very friendly city. I think it's very friendly of you to bring in Phoenix weather just for me while I'm here.

Very kind of you. Except in Phoenix, all of our buildings have air conditioners, and you need to sort of put those two things together, and that will make things a whole lot easier. There have always been those who have refused to give the Scriptures their proper place.

There have always been those who wish to add to Scripture their own authority and the unique teachings that set them apart. Indeed, Basil of Caesarea ran into some of the same problems long ago in replying to his opponents who appealed to their customs and traditions as relevant and authoritative.

He said, If custom is to be taken and proof of what is right, then it is certainly competent for me to put forward on my side the custom which obtains here. If they reject this, we are clearly not bound to follow them.

Therefore, let God-inspired Scripture decide between us, and on whichever side be found doctrines in harmony with the Word of God, in favor of that side will be cast the vote of truth. And so we gather this evening to debate the same question.

Is the Bible the sole and infallible rule of faith of the Church, or must we have other revelation from God? Do we need the Book of Mormon or the writings of the Watchtower or Mary Baker Eddy or the so-called apostolic unwritten traditions of Rome?

Does the Bible teach its own sufficiency to function as the sole rule of faith of the Church? Well, we must begin by defining the doctrine under discussion this evening. And let me begin by defining what the Doctrine of the Soul of Scriptura does not say.

First of all, it is not a claim that the Bible contains all knowledge. The Bible is not exhaustive in every detail. John 21 -25 speaks to the fact that there are many things that Jesus said and did that are not recorded in John or in fact in any book in the world because the whole books of the world could not contain it.

But the Bible does not have to be exhaustive to function as the sole rule of faith of the Church. We do not need to know the color of Thomas' eyes. We do not need to know the menu of each meal of the apostolic band for the scriptures to function as the sole rule of faith of the Church.

Secondly, it is not a denial of the Church's authority to teach God's truth. 1 Timothy 3 -15 describes the Church as the pillar and foundation of the truth. The truth is in Jesus Christ and in his word.

The Church teaches truth and calls men to Christ and in so doing functions as the pillar and foundation thereof. The Church does not add revelation or rule over scripture. The Church, being the bride of Christ, listens to the word of Christ which is found in God-breathed scripture.

Thirdly, it is not a denial that God's word has been spoken. Apostolic preaching was authoritative in and of itself. Yet the apostles proved their message from scripture as we see in Acts 17 -2 and 18 -28.

And John commended those in Ephesus for testing those who claimed to be apostles, Revelation 2 -2. The apostles were not afraid to demonstrate the consistency between their teaching and the Old Testament.

And finally, Sola Scriptura is not a denial of the role of the Holy Spirit in guiding and enlightening the Church. What then is Sola Scriptura? The doctrine of Sola Scriptura simply stated is that the scriptures and the scriptures alone are sufficient to function as the regula fide, the rule of faith for the Church.

All that one must believe to be a Christian is found in scripture and in no other source. That which is not found in scripture is not binding upon the Christian conscience. To be more specific, I provide the following definition.

The Bible claims to be the sole and sufficient rule of faith of the Christian Church. Scriptures are not in need of any supplement. Their authority comes from their nature as God-breathed Revelation.

Their authority is not dependent upon man, church, or counsel. The scriptures are self-consistent, self-interpreting, and self-authenticating. The Christian Church looks to the scriptures as the only and sufficient rule of faith, and the Church is always subject to the Word and is constantly reformed thereby.

Now given that, let me just pause there just for a moment and make a comment on the concept of self-authenticating. Obviously, I was quoting there from Lundenbap's Confession in 1689. And it doesn't seem that Mr. Madrid understands what that means.

He will later falsely attribute to me the idea that we determine canon based upon how I feel about scripture, that I read a verse of scripture and it authenticates itself to me. That's not what the Confession is talking about at all.

This goes back to some subjects that we've addressed in the past concerning the nature of what is theanoustos, what is God-breathed. And it is not about canon. The term of self-authentication is not an issue that is saying that individuals read a portion of scripture and just feel that it's inspired because of that.

Now, Madrid's going to falsely accuse me of that, but that's not in fact what that phrase means at all. I would like to explain how I plan on winning my debate this evening with Mr. Madrid. Sola Scriptura is both a positive and a negative statement.

Positively, the doctrine teaches that the Bible is sufficient to function as the sole infallible rule of faith for the Church. Negatively, it denies the existence of any other rule of faith as being necessary for the man of God.

Hence, logically, I must do the following things. First, I must demonstrate that the Bible teaches that it is a rule of faith for the Church. Secondly, I must demonstrate that the Bible is sufficient to function as the sole rule of faith for the Church.

That is, I must demonstrate its sufficiency, or in the language used in the New Testament itself, that the Bible is partia. And thirdly, I must demonstrate that the Bible, as a sufficient rule of faith, does not refer us to any other rule of faith.

Absent the demonstration on Mr. Madrid's part of some other rule of faith, the preceding is sufficient to establish the fact that the Bible teaches the doctrine of Sola Scriptura. Now, some opponents of Sola Scriptura have engaged in what can only be called cheap debating tricks in attempting to force the defender of scriptural sufficiency to prove a universal negative.

That is, the less honest debater might attempt to force me to prove the non-existence of another rule of faith. Since I am saying that scripture is unique in its function as the rule of faith of the Church, some might challenge me to demonstrate that no other rule of faith could possibly exist.

To illustrate this, I call your attention to my pen. Yes, to my pen. If our debate this evening was that I was going to stand here and say this is the only pen of its kind in all the universe, how would I go about proving it?

Well, the only way I could prove the statement, there is no other pen like this in all the universe, is if I looked in all of your purses and all of your shirt pockets and in all the stores in the world that carry pens and looked through all the houses and all over the planet Earth and the moon and the planets and the solar system and the entire universe looking for another pen like this.

And, of course, I could not do that. But it would be very easy for Mr. Madrid to win that debate. All he needs to do is go out and get a cross-medalist pen, walk up here, hold it right next to mine and say, see, another pen just like yours.

And he's won the debate. In light of this, I would assert that Mr. Madrid must either recognize this reality and not attempt to win this debate by doing nothing more than depending upon an illogical demand, or he must demonstrate the existence of the other pen.

That is, he must prove to us what the Council of Trent said was true, I quote. It also clearly perceives that these truths and rules are contained in the written books and in the unwritten traditions, which received by the apostles from the mouth of Christ himself or from the apostles themselves, the Holy Ghost dictating, have come down to us, transmitted as it were, from hand to hand.

Now I just stop for just a moment to once again, and I know that many of our listeners are already aware of this, we have lots of new listeners and some people who are not familiar with the arguments with Rome.

One of the problems that all of us have documented many times in attempting to deal with the claims of Roman Catholicism is the fact that the individuals representing Rome often adopt a mutually contradictory position, sometimes in the same presentation.

Part of this is due to the fact that their own history demonstrates there has not been a single Roman Catholic position on certain issues of authority, that in fact it has been a matter of development over time, and that there have been disagreements.

The Council of Trent's words that I just quoted were understood by the majority at the Council in what is called partum partum, that is partly in the written traditions, partly in the oral traditions.

And there are going to be sometimes, Madrid's going to say, the position of the Church is material sufficiency. He's just being naive at that point. This was something they were just then developing. It wasn't new as far as Roman Catholic theology is concerned, but they were just getting into it.

It wasn't something, I mean, go through Catholicism and Fundamentalism, the original edition, prior to this debate. That's not something that was laid out there and say, oh, see, here's the position of material sufficiency, that is that everything is found at least implicitly in the scriptures, in the written traditions.

Of course, I would argue that there's all sorts of stuff that Rome teaches that isn't even found implicitly anywhere in scripture, but they want to try to say that as long as you can find, you know, Cacare Temene and Luke 128 is implicit enough for the entire realm of the Marian dogmas, and Matthew 16 is enough for the entire realm of infallibility of the Pope and all the rest of that stuff.

That's how you can put anything into the written. But the fact of the matter is it's obviously clear that what they're really arguing is we don't have enough in the scriptures. We need to have something else.

Well, what do we need? Well, the teaching magisterium of the Church. Okay, but is the teaching magisterium of the Church just interpreting scripture for us? No. They have access to what's called oral tradition, you see.

Well, that oral tradition must contain something other than what's in the written for the written to be insufficient. Well, we don't want to say that. Madrid's going to try not to say that. Well, then don't ever quote to me 2 Thessalonians 2 .15 and point out the one body of traditions delivered in a written form and an oral form as if that's relevant to your position.

If you quote it, then you're not using a material sufficiency position. What Madrid's going to do is he's going to use both. He's going to claim material sufficiency and fault me whenever I refute that, but then he's going to quote 2 Thessalonians 2 .15 and insist that we need these oral traditions.

So he's actually contradicting himself and then using that when I refute part of his claims as if, well, I just don't know enough about what in the world I'm talking about and we believe in material sufficiency, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

You've got to keep your eye on the bouncing ball. And when you do so, you find all of these Catholic apologists will at one point take one position and then instead of defending that, they'll back up to the other one and say, oh, no, I'm saying this.

And then they'll go right back out there and make that claim again. When you refute that claim, oh, you just don't understand. This is the methodology that they use. It's frequently very confusing to people who haven't listened to it enough times, heard enough people doing it to really be able to follow it.

End quote. Hence, I shall demonstrate that the Bible teaches its sufficiency to function as the sole rule of faith of the Church. And if Mr. Madrid wishes to attempt to show us some other rule of faith, I will gladly respond to such an attempt.

Now, the doctrine of sola scriptura is based upon the inspiration of Scripture. Our primary passage this evening, I hope you have your Bibles with you, will be found in Paul's second letter to Timothy.

The gentlemen from Catholic Answers have made it a practice for years to assert that Protestants cannot provide a single verse that teaches sola scriptura. Yet they are quite mistaken in this, though they have been corrected a number of times in the past, and let us examine the passage to see if this is the case.

2 Timothy 3, verses 16 through 17. All Scripture is God-breathed and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for instruction, for training in righteousness, in order that the man of God might be complete, fully equipped for every good work.

We begin by knowing that Scripture is theanustas, God-breathed. The term is very strong. I refer anyone who wishes a full discussion of this term to B .B. Warfield's excellent treatment of it. That which is theanustas has ultimate authority, for there can be no higher authority than God's very speaking.

All Scripture is God-breathed. It is common for Roman Catholic apologists to follow an error made by John Henry Cardinal Newman with reference to this passage. Indeed, Carl Keating, Patrick's associate at Catholic Answers, makes the same mistake in his book, Catholicism and Fundamentalism, and he repeated it again only recently during a debate on this subject in Denver during the papal visit.

Newman said that if this verse proves the sufficiency of Scripture, it proves too much, for Paul is talking here only about the Old Testament, which would leave the New Testament as an unnecessary addition.

But such is not Paul's point at all. Scripture, Paul's point is, if it is Scripture at all, is God-breathed. Paul is not speaking about the extent of the canon, but the nature of Scripture itself as originating in God.

All Scripture, then, including the New Testament, is God-breathed. Because Scripture is God-breathed, and hence represents God's very voice speaking, it is profitable for the work of the ministry in the Church of Jesus Christ.

We are told that the work of teaching and rebuking and correcting and training in righteousness can be undertaken due to the nature of Scripture as God-breathed. Now let me just stop for just a moment and emphasize once again, the context of this passage is about the man of God teaching in the Church.

Teaching, rebuking, reproving, training in righteousness, this is the foundation, the lifeblood of the exhortation of the man of God in the Church. This is where his authority flows from. Now one of the things, one of the major blunders, and I do identify it as a blunder in the debate, that Madrid makes is he tries to get around this text by, again, ignoring the original languages and going to other places where completion or maturity is mentioned in the New Testament.

But none of them have any relationship to this text in regards to the fact that this is where the man of God derives his authority for teaching in the Church. Madrid just grossly mishandles the text. As we saw in the debate on the veneration of saints and angels, every time these men get into the text, they grossly mishandle it.

That is why I think they're trying to avoid it as much as they possibly can now, because that's just a fact. When they get into the text of Scripture, they cannot handle it because it does not teach consistently what Roman Catholicism claims it teaches.

What is Paul's point? The Church is not left without the voice of God. For when the Church listens to Scripture, she is hearing her Lord speaking to her. The authority of the Church, then, in teaching and rebuking and instructing is derived, despite Roman Catholic claims to the contrary, from Scripture itself.

Now, Mr. Madrid will certainly disagree. For in addressing this very passage less than 50 days ago, in a debate on this topic, he said, speaking specifically of verse 16, I defy you to show me where it says sufficient.

In your remarks, you said, when you cited 2 Timothy 3 .16, you said sufficient. But that is not what the Bible teaches. Of course, no one asserts the term profitable in verse 16 equates to sufficiency.

When his opponents referred him to verse 17, Mr. Madrid said, well, 17 doesn't say sufficient either. 17 says that so the one that belongs to God may be competent and equipped for every good work. That does not teach sufficiency.

Where does the Bible teach that it is sufficient? Is Mr. Madrid correct here? Well, let's see. Verse 17 continues the thought of verse 16. The fact that the church has God's voice, always present with her, and God reads Scripture, means the man of God, specifically here, of course, Timothy, but I doubt anyone would disagree, that these comments refer to all those who belong to Christ and who are a part of his body, the church, might be complete, fully equipped for every good work.

The first term to examine is the adjective translated complete, the Greek term artia. We know that it is related in its root to the second term we will examine, the verb which is translated fully equipped, that being the verb exartizo.

Paul is here providing us with a play on words, the verb compounding and emphasizing the meaning present in the adjective. Now the term artia, Vine tells us, means fitted, complete. Bauer, Arndt, Gingrich, and Donker tell us the term means complete, capable, proficient.

That is, as they say, able to meet all demands, giving the specific citation of 2 Timothy 3 .17 as the reference. One of the newest lexical resources, Loewenita's Greek-English lexicon based on semantic domain, uses the term qualified as well.

The great Greek scholar Richard Trench, in his Synonyms of the New Testament, said with reference to this term, if we ask ourselves under what special aspects completeness is contemplated in artia, it would be safe to answer that it is not as the presence only of all the parts which are necessary for that completeness, but involves further the adaptation and aptitude of these parts for the ends which they were designed to serve.

The man of God, St. Paul would say, should be furnished and accomplished with all which is necessary for the carrying out of the work to which he is appointed.". I pause only long enough to note that Paul here asserts that the man of God can be complete, capable, proficient, and qualified because he has available to him always God's inspired scriptures.

Surely, here Paul would have to direct us to any and all other rules of faith that we would need to be complete, but he does not. But Paul was not satisfied to merely state that the man of God may be artios, complete, but he goes on to define what he means, fully equipped for every good work.

The term is ex-artidso, here in the perfect passive participial form, the prefix ex having, as Robertson noted, the perfective force. Vine tells us that here in Second Symmetry it means to fit out, that is to furnish completely.

Bauer, Gingrich, and Donker express this with the term equip. Hendrickson makes reference to a related term, catartidso, and it's used at Luke 640 where it is translated fully trained. We see here then that Paul teaches that the man of God is thoroughly or completely equipped for every good work.

Now what does it mean to say that one is fully equipped if not to say that one is sufficient for a task? I've recently taken up long distance bicycle riding, and I found a lovely little bike shack, a bike store, where they are able to give me everything that I need, the clothes and the gloves and the helmet and the bike and the tires and tubes which you need a lot.

They are able to fully equip me for the task of riding a bike. Does that not mean then that they are sufficient as equippers for their task? Most definitely it does. Now it's going to be very interesting.

I know I'm anticipating, but I listened to this last Saturday. So it's going to be fascinating to see the ways that Madrid's going to try to get around this illustration and this information. First of all, he's going to dismiss all the lexical information I just provided, and I provide a pretty wide range.

He's going to dismiss them all as being a bunch of Protestants. Now I know and you know and everybody else listening knows that if Patrick Madrid had any Roman Catholic scholarship that refuted that lexical information, remember most of the sources I was citing are actually produced by groups that are mixed Catholic and Protestant, like the UBS committees and things like that.

And so it was just a bogus argument on his part. If he had any meaningful Roman Catholic lexical information to refute what I was saying, he would have given it. He didn't have it. He had never studied it.

He couldn't handle that information. And so all he could do is just mock the use of Greek and say, well, I brought my Bible this evening, which I thought was probably it's up in the top ten lamest responses ever given to me during a debate.

And given that I've debated people, wow, the list is illustrious. But given some of the people that I've debated, to be in the top ten of lame-o responses is not really good. But anyway, one of the ways he's going to try to get around this, he's going to try to say, yeah, but the bike store can't teach you how to ride the bike.

And see, that's what the Roman magisterium does. Now, how in the world? First of all, it completely ignores the fact that in 2 Timothy we're talking about the man of God. There is a context here. And so man of God equals bicyclist.

That's a given. That's not even a part of the illustration, so it's a completely bogus response and irrelevant. But let's run with it for a second. How does Rome teach you to ride the bicycle? How does Rome teach the man of God to be the man of God?

What is it that Rome has defined by her traditions? We keep asking for her infallible interpretation of the Bible, and she won't give it to us. After all these years, we still can't get her to infallibly define the Bible for us.

Any particular text. There are certain Roman Catholic scholars who have admitted there is no infallible interpretation of any text. Some people say, well, there's seven. Seven verses. Let's say there's seven verses.

The major verses that we need to have an infallible interpretation on, we aren't given an infallible interpretation of at all. And in fact, Patrick later in the debate is going to make a claim that, well, our tradition tells you what restrains in 2 Thessalonians 2.

We know what restrains is. But has that been dogmatically defined? Of course it hasn't. And so he doesn't really know. It's his opinion. It's amazing how many times it was just Patrick Madrid's opinion that he was giving as to what Rome teaches.

He could never, ever use the standards in defense of his position that he uses in the criticism of mine. Never. Can't do it. That's the demonstration of the falseness of the Roman Catholic position, beyond any question.

And they don't have any answer for that. Ask them and listen to them spin off into all sorts of other subjects. They'll never be able to give a meaningful response to that particular question at all. So just be prepared for the response that's going to be given.

We further see that the Scriptures can equip the man of God for every good work. And Mr. Madrid, do you not believe it is a good work to pray to Mary? Yet the Scriptures nowhere teach this. Do you not believe it is good to believe and teach that Mary was bodily assumed into heaven?

Yet the Bible does not teach this. Do you not believe that the man of God should teach in the church that the Pope in Rome is infallible in his teaching office? Yet the Scriptures know nothing of such a concept.

We see then that the Roman position is contradicted by that of the Apostle, for he knew of no other rule of faith that was necessary so that the man of God could be equipped for every good work. No other rule of faith, that is, than the Scriptures.

But finally, we remember Mr. Madrid's challenge to show him a verse that teaches sufficiency. Mr. Madrid, I would like to direct you to the scriptural standard by the mouth of two or three witnesses shall a fact be established.

I first refer you to Lo and Nida's Greek-English lexicon where we encounter the definition given for the semantic domain of Ex Artidso, I quote, to make someone completely adequate or sufficient for something, to make adequate, to furnish completely, to cause to be fully qualified, adequacy, end quote.

I pause just for a moment to assert that Patrick Madrid had never looked into the meaning of any of the terms in 2nd Timothy 3, maybe Theanistos, but certainly not Ex Artidso. And as such, this is the first time he was ever hearing this.

And so part of the bluster and part of the kind of response you're going to hear is simply due to someone who has made a repeated challenge to other people and now someone has answered his challenge who he never thought would be able to do so and now he just doesn't really know what to do about it.

They translate our passage as completely qualified for every good deed. While Lo and Nida give us two witnesses, I wish to direct you as well to the well-known scholarly resource by Fritz Reinacher and Cleon Rogers entitled Linguistic Key to the Greek New Testament.

Here we find the following in regards to both terms here in verse 17, quote, Arteas, fit, complete, capable, sufficient, i .e. able to meet all demands. Ex Artidso, completely outfitted, fully furnished, fully equipped, fully supplied, end quote.

Hence we see the following. Number one, Paul here teaches that the Bible is a rule of faith for he says the church's function of teaching, rebuking, and instructing is to be based upon God-inspired scripture.

Number two, we see that this passage teaches the sufficiency of the scriptures to function in this way. And number three, we see that Paul not only does not refer us to another rule of faith, but implicitly denies the necessity of such a rule of faith by his teaching on the ability of scripture to completely equip the man of God.

Therefore, I assert that the doctrine of sola scriptura is taught plainly in this passage. Mr. Madrid must be able to fully refute the information I have provided to you to win this evening's debate. Now one might well ask, is this the only place where sola scriptura is taught?

Most certainly not, though it is the clearest. For example, we find this concept plainly enunciated in the words of the Lord Jesus Christ when coming into conflict with the traditions of the Jewish leaders.

Note the words recorded in Matthew's Gospel, Chapter 15. Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders?

They don't wash their hands before they eat. Jesus replied, And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? For God said, Honor your father and mother, and anyone who curses his father and mother must be put to death.

But you say that if a man says to his father and mother, Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is a gift of God, he is not to honor his father with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition.

Here we find the Lord providing us with the example that we must follow this evening. The Jewish leaders objected to the fact that disciples did not follow the rigorous hand-washing rituals of the Pharisees.

They identified this as a breaking of the tradition of the elders. They firmly believed that this body of tradition was authoritative, and some even believed that it had been passed down from Moses himself, though this surely is without warrant.

But does Jesus accept this claim of authority? Not at all. Instead, he launches a counterattack against these leaders by pointing out how they nullify the command of God for the following of their own traditions, specifically in this with reference to the Korban rule.

The Lord Jesus holds this traditional teaching up to the light of Scripture and finds it wanting. In the same way, we too must hold any tradition up to the light of Scripture, for no tradition is on the same level of authority as Scripture.

Traditions are not God-breathed, and hence are subject to examination on the part of the higher authority of Scripture. Even though the Jews believe their traditions to have authority, they are held responsible for recognizing that God speaks to them in Scripture, not in their tradition.