The Roman Catholic Controversy Part 9

So we left off kind of in the middle after just running a chapter.

I really think the things we talk about here fill the time.

So the next week we're going to go over chapter 8 quickly. This is late.

Now just to recap where we've been. We're all in a kind of instant conversation on the merits of solus scriptura.

Nowhere in the Bible are you going to find that phrase, solus scriptura. Is that problematic?

Why not? Is it problematic?

Well who would say that's a problem?

Do you know what position that's held? People who deny any doctrine that's outside, that's not specifically spelled out in Scripture.

It starts with B. A biblicist.

Now a biblicist sounds kind of funny. It's like a publicist or something. A biblicist is someone who wrongly believes the notion that if it's not word for word spelled out in the

Bible then you don't accept it. But the problem is that you're not going to find the word biblicist in the

Bible either. And so just on the outward appearance and basis kind of falls flat immediately.

But it's an interesting notion. Now Jehovah's Witnesses don't use that term for instance, a biblicist.

Because they claim to a cure strictly to the Bible and they say that but they don't believe in anything that's not specifically spelled out in the

Bible. So why do they believe in trading? Why do they don't believe in certain things? Because they don't believe in all those weird things like that Jesus returned and there's a good thing for me even though that's not spelled out in the

Bible. But groups like Jehovah's Witnesses and others who are biblicists will say hey if it's not spelled out in Scripture then you shouldn't accept it.

However thanks to our reformed background and our reformed tradition though,

Scripture alone. Right? So we believe in the authority of Scripture alone.

So when we talk about soul scripture I understand how we're framing that discussion. We're framing it in this way.

Scripture alone is our final authority for all things related to faith practice.

Which means that we don't have public councils which determine things that are extra biblical that are afforded at least in the same way that Scripture is.

Scripture always expresses it over all other forms of tradition. Though we ourselves do adhere to certain traditions.

We adhere to the 69 confession. That's a form of tradition. We do certain things in our liturgy that are a form of tradition.

Maybe we're putting our tradition in our church maybe. Maybe in our liturgy. Remember what that word liturgy means? It's an order of service.

Maybe we went up to a liturgy or some other tradition.

It doesn't necessarily give us a positive demand to do what we've got to do.

I'd say supply. There's no positive demand that we necessarily have to do what we've got to do. We have five

Psalms. I find them every time.

Less songs, more preaching. They keep saying more songs. I want less songs.

If you don't like to sing it, that's fine. Making a joyful noise is important.

There's no weird description as to if it's five songs or four songs or three songs or two songs. Have I heard correctly when

I was a child that it's only the two songs? One beginning and one ending. We are seeking people.

That's true. It's a form of tradition. There's no more Scripture for us than we have anywhere else in our liturgy or church without you seeing a tradition maybe.

That is specifically called out Scripture. All the

Epistles kind of close with some form of benediction. It's not a long -winded thing, but I guess there's no positive demand that you have to do.

The whole service is a form of tradition. In the

Scripture, it gives us... One of the things about the regular Epistle of Worship, which we're here to, is that there are positive commands that are kind of overarching.

For instance, public reading of Scripture, prayer, spiritual salvation is, the positive commands that we're told to do, but we're not told to do in any certain order in particular.

Sunday school started as a regular school for the minor's children in Welsh and developed into our

Sunday school. There you go. It's another kind of tradition.

The elements are there. So what are we talking about? Tradition in itself is not a draw of faith necessarily.

Part of the Reformed tradition, in fact, dictates that we do certain things and include certain elements in our worship.

But where do those traditions derive from? Where do they receive their source from?

I would argue, of course, it would be the Scriptures. Like I just indicated to you, the positive commands of Scripture in regard to regular worship is things that we have to have these elements.

But then there's tradition, which gives us flexibility on how we order and structure in such positive ways.

So for instance, if we go to the 169 Baptist Church elsewhere in the country, it's going to be a little bit different.

And what's unique about our church is that we have folks from different churches. We just had Kevin, who was here for several months working on a temporary assignment here.

But his church in Texas is a Reformed 169 church too. And he was remarking to me how we're very similar, yet we do things a little bit differently.

And that's to be expected when you have even very similar cultures of churches like we share with others.

There should be some differences, right? Which is to show you, again, that there's a flexibility in the way in how we interpret the positive commands of regular worship.

As long as you have these elements, that's what really matters. Everything else is tradition, how we order and structure such things.

So we don't want an analogic reaction to tradition per se. We want to have it in its right place.

There are bad traditions, like the altar call. Certainly, we can argue that there are lots of traditions that are not biblical that should be steered away from.

Altar calls may be a concern with one of them, and I would agree with that. Although I would argue that there's probably a good way of doing it.

But it's usually ignored, particularly amongst charismatic and Baptist circles.

There are a lot of Baptists who do altar calls, for instance, especially in the SCC. And the emphasis is on resolve.

And I've seen, and I've been a member of the SCC for seven years. I remember most pastors just want that number of ministers to be able to raise.

We had 17 people who raised their hand in church and gave the heart to the Lord today. There's 25 people at the youth group that this would be.

It's really no follow -up. There's no discipleship. 17 lives were recorded.

And that's an institution of very little follow -up. It's an easy -to -leave -ism, and I think that makes a lot of Baptists.

But I also don't think it's unbiblical to press someone to a decision. I think that we should be pressing people, as evangelists, preachers,

Christians. We ought to be pressing, not trusting, but pressing for a decision before the

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