Sunday School - The Roman Catholic Controversy - Part 6

All right, brothers and sisters, we were in chapter 6, 5.

Chapter 5 was this reading of the soul scripture of God. So you guys, particularly, what are some things I set out to read for you this week?

And then we'll go more in depth into the teaching. Any things I set out to you guys, this week, from chapter 5 of Roman Catholic Controversy by James White?

I wasn't sure I was reading. I had never heard when they were talking about rules of faith and develop a rule of faith.

And then on page 68, it kind of defines the question for us.

There are some things for you to hear. We should sit down. And we're going to go more in depth into that.

It's a really interesting concept to bring up in the life of soul scriptura. Anything that maybe was new to you in regards to soul scriptura, that maybe you didn't consider before, or maybe you didn't know before?

Because sometimes people have a basic misunderstanding of what soul scriptura is supposed to be and what it means.

What are the things that soul scriptura does not? Emmanuel? Me, by Bible, under a tree.

Say it again? Me, by Bible, under a tree. Yeah, that's right. Does this mean that you are now the perfect, infallible interpreter of God's word?

Oh, it just needs to be in the Bible, and that's enough. That's not soul scriptura.

Anyone else have maybe a concept or thought that is new to you? I think you at the beginning.

Yes, Sarah? I'd like to end by pointing out that the Bible does not include all truth.

It doesn't even necessarily include all spiritual truth. Or, I don't know, religiously.

It quotes this document, but where is this document? We're missing it. And this book isn't included in your

Bible. Yeah, sure. Yeah, it was some historical book. And it kind of threw me through a loop.

It's like, where is this? We're missing. Yeah. The scripture refers to lots of,

I think at least five times, to books that are undiscovered, really.

There's the, what is the Chronicles reference? The reference is the Book of Wars.

Probably correct. Talk about the Book of Wars. Talk about another account of Solomon. There's a lot of things in the scriptures that point to other things that we haven't discovered that are bothering.

In the scripture, the New Testament quotes often from Greek writers. And so it's a very interesting thing.

Anyone else have any thoughts or questions in regards to the reading? Yes, Andrew? I guess kind of piggybacking on what you just said,

I read a commentary from Crossway, about the Greek Septuagint. And one big point to help clarify is that just because people have quoted, does that also take something that was done with Theonistos and make it

Theonistos? That's right. What it does is that, what's inspired it, is the point that the biblical authors make it.

That's right. In the Ten Commandments, it says Paul quotes the Greek philosopher,

Hippolytus. Okay. And he says, you know, we are all, Acts 17, we are all his offspring.

Right? So if you're Hippolytus, you've heard this statement. Right? Because he's a poet for a very long duration.

Similar, I think, when it says in 1 Corinthians 15, 33, you know, he's quoting from a

Greek philosopher, and he says, that is close to character. And so that's very important.

That's scripture. That's often used in the church, but its source material is in itself

Christ. That's an important distinction. I was really surprised to hear that the,

Roman Catholic Church says in, you know, that they have to have tradition.

Yeah. So if you remember last week, we talked about how other churches do similar things. Right? So you have

Roman Catholicism, kind of, obviously the biggest, one of the biggest world religions. But then you also have, from a micro scale, you have the

Mormon Church, you have the Church of Moses, who all claim that the scripture is not sufficient. Who all claim that they are the ones who can interpret scripture.

So, they believe in Genesis as well. They believe in LGY. They see and aspire to interpret scripture. So, there's always a guy that says, we believe in God.

This is the word of God. We believe the Bible is the word of God. But, we have, you know, you can't appreciate it apart from our interpretation.

You can't appreciate it apart from our literature. You can't appreciate it apart from the Pope, or the Councils, or this or that.

And so, and that's where we begin to crash, have a crash course with,

Sola Scriptura. And what does Sola Scriptura mean? In the context of Reformation, and the things that are being made by the

Mormon. Any other thoughts or questions before we go a little deeper? Let's jump into the lesson, and again, today's lesson is a topic on Sola Scriptura.

And, really, clearly defining what Sola Scriptura is, means, and the implication it has for the believers.

First and foremost, where does Sola Scriptura originate from? Where does it originate from?

If you think this is a trick question, maybe it is. Where does it originate from?

The Reformation. The Reformation. You would not be totally wrong. That's technically true.

Where does it really originate from? Where does it really originate from?

The Bible. Thank you. It's the Bible. Come on, guys. Wake up. The Bible is the key, or the origin of Sola Scriptura.

God's Word says, 1 Timothy 3, verse 16, what does it say? All scriptures.

God reads fine. And it's beneficial for teaching, for hearing, for doing, for demonstrating, for submitting to righteousness as a man of God, to be fully competent.

Fully competent. You know, we always look at the first part of verse 16, but verse 17 is key, too, because it says that it makes the man of God fully competent, which is to say, or in other translations, more competent.

It's sufficient. It makes the man of God fully sufficient for every good deed.

God's Word is totally sufficient for the edification, teaching, rebuking, instructing of God's people.

Sola Scriptura originates from Scripture. Scripture is self -authenticating. Scripture is defiantly inspired.

It is God -breathed. It originates from the heart of the mind and the very breath of God. God breathed, and He speaks

His words, or as it's recorded for us here in the Old Scripture. Therefore, the Roman Catholic languages, the languages of Jerusalem, the languages of the

Mormons, that say Scripture is not sufficient, are contradicting head -on with the absolute writings of the

Apostle Paul and the absolute understanding of the New Testament and the Old Testament. And so, when we ask, when the question is raised for our

Roman Catholic friends about Sola Scriptura, we say, first and foremost, it originates in Holy Scripture.

Now, it is also true that the term Sola Scriptura, Latin for what?

Scripture alone, originates primarily in the early years of the

Reformation. And so, the Reformation started around the 1500s. You know,

I'll say, still going today, we're still part of this Reformation history and tradition.

But primarily, the issue when Sola Scriptura came on the scene was an issue of authority.

What is the authority for the believer? Is it Rome, the

Pope, and its many councils, which are often self -economic theory? Or is it the

Scriptures? Now, remember the context. Most of the common people did not have access to the

Bible. Most of the common people, the laity, the church folks in the pews, had never even seen the

Bible before. And it was punishable by death if you were caught with the

Bible in a modern language, whether German, English, French, whatever the language was in the dominant country.

And because the Bible was kept in what language prior to the time? Latin. And I was,

I think, being called upon by this last week. It wasn't until the 1950s, basically, until they began to relax some of those issues or the regulations of the government and stuff, right?

Right. Any other questions? You want to give one? No. I mean, what I mentioned last time is even some of the death penalty stuff,

I'm aware of situations in Moldavia and Uganda where that was happening. It's not ancient history.

Yeah, this is fairly recent stuff. Yeah. This is not ancient history, you know, 400 years ago.

This is pretty recent than the last, you know, 200 years. What was the reason? What was the reason?

Yeah. For keeping it in Latin? Or, yeah, why would they put something in Latin?

You know, part of it was because the concept of Roman Catholicism, especially at the time, was they wanted to guard their doctrines and dogma from being corrupted.

So the idea was, if this goes into unlearned hands, then unlearned people begin to corrupt the understanding and purity of the gospel.

And that's why they have a strong distinction between the clergy and the laity. And the clergy had to go to seminaries, priests had to go, you know, it was really only in the seminaries that most of the community priests had access to Bibles.

Most of the priests, people don't know this, most of the priests in the churches in the medieval ages did not have

Bibles themselves. They would have to have access to what was in the seminaries and they would have to memorize it because they were so nervous about the

Bible getting into unlearned hands. And again, they feel, if you ask a

Roman Catholic today, they feel vindicated in that because they say, well look at, all you guys have

Bibles and what do you got? 48 different, 48 ,000 different denominations of Christian in the

Protestantism. And so they feel vindicated and say, look at all the divisions you guys have. Everyone has a

Bible and everyone has their own interpretation and that's what we were trying to avoid. Which is why they kept it so under their law and they kept it in Latin under their language so that only the priest could properly interpret the scripture for them.

So do you think that protection of the Bible came from a righteous place? Like they had good intentions?

Or was it just like a bad interpretation of like, you know, them as like protectors of the Bible? Yeah, just like anyone in a place of authority like our

United States Congress, they all do things out of the best intentions. But they usually end up ruining everything and everything they touch.

And I think any place of authority where people think, oh well, I just have to do this because if not, you guys are just going to make such a mess of yourselves.

And when they take out the role of the individual, they take the role of, and this is, spiritually speaking, the individual priesthood of the believer, that, you know, when you collectivize everything, when you collectivize everything, everything ultimately rises to the top.

This is those who are in authority, those who are in power, this is, you know, this is common power structure of humanity.

So when you look at other power structures of communism and things like that, power always is supposed to be for the people and it rises to the top always.

And so, the same is true of the religious dogma. People who are at the top tend to consolidate power and they do so in the guise of protecting, you know, the average

Joe. And so, it's just, it's part of human nature. When we look at the history of humanity and all the forms of government and all the forms of social structures that we've made, religious, non -religious, it always ends up being the same because we're all in this same bald condition.

So, any thoughts or questions on this, Silvana? All right. It's depressing.

It is depressing. But thank goodness we have the gospel. The gospel is the answer to all these issues.

Whether it's social, political, spiritual, the gospel is always the answer. And that's the part

I'm supposed to refer to is that scripture is the mission, the gospel is the answer and we always bring it back to the gospel.

Does that make sense? Like, the gospel really is the answer to all mankind's problems. Why are there wars?

Why are there famines? Why are there, you know, issues at home? Why are there issues in our workplaces?

Ultimately, the gospel is the gospel of salvation. It's the answer to all our problems. And so, that's what we need to continue to preach and educate ourselves with.

In relation to social structure, not only do we recognize that this is something that is based in scripture, it has a historical precedent in the early

Reformation church, but also, I want to explain to you what social structure is and not based on reading the

Bible. So, first of all, one of the things that James White makes here, page 56, is that social structure is an understatement that the

Bible contains all knowledge. Now, at first, that statement can make you feel a little uncomfortable.

You know, if you have, if you have, maybe, a conception of social structure that was maybe not 100 % accurate, you'd be like, what do you mean that the

Bible doesn't contain all knowledge? Or, it almost seems like we make less of the Bible by saying that.

But, this is such an important truth. The Bible is not a scientific textbook. Right?

So, it doesn't have all the answers to scientific truth. It doesn't have all the answers to mathematics, or literature.

There's very little math, you know, in scriptures. In fact, you know, Jesus seems to multiply fish out of nowhere.

I haven't figured that out yet in geometry or in mathematics.

So, how Jesus and how God does certain things and functions goes beyond what we would know as, you know, science or knowledge.

It's like supernatural, supersedes natural order. There's a lot of things out there that scripture doesn't give us the answers to.

It says that the Lord God created them from the earth in six days. We don't know how He did it. We just know He says

He did it. And so, how the Lord creates all the world and brings forth things out of nothing, we don't have those answers.

But we rely on scripture as reliable truth. And I would say it's the foundation for all knowledge.

It's not that the scripture contains all knowledge, but it gives us the foundation for all knowledge.

Because without it, we could know nothing. Now, there is a really interesting documentary by Jordan Peterson on the

Bible that you can find on YouTube. And, again, Jordan Peterson is not a believer. He's not a

Protestant. He's not someone who I would go to as a source of authority. But I appreciate the passion that he brought in this documentary that he made about literacy and the scriptures.

And when he does that, he goes to the library, the student library in Washington, D .C., and he goes through the history of the

Bible. And it's magnificent. I mean, the history of the Bible still compares to it in literature.

And when he does that, he points out on the Bible, without the Bible, we would not have modern society.

Without the Bible, we would not have modern knowledge. Basic things that we take for granted, like literacy, mathematics, science, biology, all have basis in the scriptures.

And without it, we wouldn't have any of these things today. And so, really, when

I say that the scriptures is the foundation for all knowledge, and I really mean that, without the scriptures, we would not have many of the things that we understand today and take for granted.

Any thoughts or questions on that? Absolutely.

Right. That's right. I mean, you know, even the things that we don't even think about, you know, for instance, um, yeah, even the way that we, right, so I think

I just asserted several weeks ago, um, you have, for instance, the

Bible, sheet of cycles, seven years, it's called the Bible sheet of Hebrew. You have the seven year cycles, and at least in Hebrew, right, it's the canceling of debt.

and seven years is usually the debt cycle. Uh, which is why on your credit score, if you, if you, you default to the year of payment, you usually see your credit score over, uh, years.

Small little things like that. I don't think around the room think actually has a basis foundation in scripture.

Uh, and so, yeah, very fascinating. But I would encourage you to watch that documentary. Uh, I think it's called

Law Laws of Electricity or something like that from Jordan Peterson. Really fascinating, um, look at the history of the

Bible. Now, the second thing he points out is that the Bible is an exhaustive catalog for all religious knowledge.

Uh, what does he mean by that in particular? What does he mean by that?

What does James White mean that the scripture is not an exhaustive catalog for all religious knowledge? He's pretending that we have, there are some, there are some religious knowledge that we have to derive from the good natural consequences of the scripture but it's just going to spill out.

Which is why we preach it. Alright. Preachers are meant to exegete the scriptures.

What does the word exegete mean? To interpret. To what? To interpret. To interpret essentially and to draw out of the text and to illuminate the text.

So we're called to exegete scripture. To, uh, to, to, to bring it to light.

And so the preacher would be unnecessary if the scriptures were exhaustive or anything because then we would be known to point to religious knowledge.

Alright. And so scripture is now meant to be exhaustive in all religious knowledge.

Uh, and for instance we don't have an exhaustive stigma on trinity in scripture.

We don't have an exhaustive, you know, the closest we would get would be 1 John 5, verse 13 or 12 but it's what's usually referred to as the one and the common which is that through the very record we have the

Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost and these three are one. We get more and more Christians who have that because it's not in the oldest major scriptures.

Uh, and so we don't have an exhaustive trinity on the uh,

Hypostatic Union of uh, exhaustive uh, doctrine on many things in scripture but we draw it out of those scriptures.

We exegete, we see what the scripture says, we draw these things out and we say, okay, well, if this and this are common then it means this and that's how we come to interpretation of scripture.

I also want to point out that there is a science to interpretation, right? So we don't just look at scripture and say, well, that's how you interpret it and I interpret it differently.

Uh, I think that we can mostly come to a pretty fair and common understanding of scripture by following the very basic principles of interpretation, right?

Uh, and there's a science to look at pastors and preachers and theologians have learned in several areas what's taught to us as basic fundamentals of interpretation which is hermeneutics and exegesis.

Uh, hermeneutics is the way we interpret scripture. It's the lens by which we interpret it and we harmonize the scripture and the next reading is that we draw out on the scripture.

So, um, there is a science to this. It's not like we're just guessing. Um, and I think that's the way in which we can find common ground with a lot of folks is if we just have these basic conversations.

One of the things I did with my mom was to show her this. Um, maybe a week or two ago. We got into a conversation of scriptures which, uh, it's always interesting to show this.

And she was telling me how it was here and all this stuff and this is always a good thing. It was a message and she was pointing to a scripture in Matthew and she said,

Mom, I think that ever happened. She said, what? She couldn't believe what I said. I'm not a preterist.

I'm a partial preterist. So, I don't take preterism to the degree. But what

I did say to her is I think that this scripture has been fulfilled and that this scripture has been and that scripture has been don't take preterism to the degree.

I don't take preterism to the take preterism to the degree.

When we of Jesus appearance brought the place of the audience at the time in which these were shown.

So that would help a lot of the false doctrine out there. We cleared a lot of false doctrines very quickly.

We just did that most of the trip. Any other thoughts or questions about this? Scriptures are not nearly as exhaustive in our understanding of religious theology.

Well, the examples he would give me were just narrative details. There was more of a juxtaposition. And it didn't seem that he was talking about the implications of scripture.

I was waiting to talk about necessary implications later. But I would like to hear him kind of formalize his beliefs on that, given that this book was written a long time ago.

So as Jim Dwight started talking about, he calls himself a reformed biblicist. No, I'm talking about a biblicist.

Yeah, so a biblicist is someone who usually chooses a derogatory term for someone who only takes the things that are very explicitly stated in scripture and doesn't look at the logical implications of them, like the fact that God is

Trinity, that Jesus is God, and the Father is God. But yeah, given that he's started talking about reformed biblicism and things that other people are taking logical implications too far,

I'd love to see him outline where he considers the boundary to be. But yeah, that's just a thought.

No, that's a good one. He also has a whole book on Sola Scriptura, by the way, which is pretty good.

And Reformed Con, he touched on that a little bit, too, on his talk when I was there. And so that's interesting to be introduced to that, for sure.

And one of the things that he says here, again, that the Bible is the complete rule of faith.

And it's still the complete rule of faith. But it doesn't need to be exhaustive in order for it to be complete.

Right? So we don't have to get completely into it. The Scriptures are sufficient. Think of what sufficiency means.

Does it mean completely all -encompassing? Not necessarily. But it means that it is sufficient for the task at hand.

And what's the task at hand? We're in 2 Timothy chapter 3. It's to demand God to be fully competent in every word.

Right? And so. Isn't it, too, he's talking about it's sufficient for salvation?

Absolutely. That's true. All that we need to know for life to come is.

Right? And so it's sufficient. God's word is sufficient. But at the same time, it's not meant to be the exclusion of whatever works, whatever good things we do.

We're reading a book that's not the Bible. It's a psalm, right? And by reading a book that's not the

Bible, does that negate its whole Scripture? No. So here's what you're supposed to do, for instance.

They'll have a book, which one of the books published by the Watchtower Society.

And they'll interpret the Bible. This is their alliance. And they'll interpret the Bible through this book.

Right? So the book has supremacy over the Bible because they say you have to believe what this book says in order for you to understand this book.

Now, the Christian does the opposite. The Christian, this is the supreme rule of faith.

And so we use this book. First, as our main guide. And we understand that this book is not perfect.

It's not made by infallible men. And so we hold this to be higher esteem than this.

And we never say this interprets this. Instead, this is the supreme rule of faith. And this will dictate what

I receive from this. Does that make sense? And so it's similar to the

Roman Catholic view which is of the supremacy of the popery and supremacy of the councils and traditions over the supremacy of Scripture.

And so they are interpreting Scripture through the lens of the councils, the posts, and other dogmas.

Instead of allowing Scripture to be the supreme rule of faith. Does that make sense? The third thing that was brought up was that Scripture is not in line with the authority of the church to teach doctrine.

It's kind of like what I brought up earlier. Why do we need creatures as pastors? It's not that we're just reading

Scripture. Part of our liturgy here at our church is that we have what's sometimes referred to as dumb reading.

We'll just read Scripture. Now we have to do something contrary to that, reading

Scripture. But if there are some biblicalists in the movement who take the view that all you've got to do is read it.

Just read it. And that's it. That's the vision. But we're not called to just read. We're called to exegete.

We're called to preach, to draw out of the texts of Christian Scripture and make it not just applicable to the life of the

Christian today, but also to draw out of the original text of the original meaning of the people of God.

And so that's a super important concept that we can't forget. And that draws us back to the authority of the church.

The church does have authority. The church has been entrusted the words and orders of God.

And I think those things can't be overlooked. Anything that stood out to you in that section that could be of importance?

Why don't you begin? Why don't you turn to the Scriptures in Chapter 4?

Let's start at verse 6 of Chapter 4 with Timothy. Again, Timothy is a pastoral epistle, a letter from a multitude of young pastors.

And after going on with Paul, he came to the nobles here of the pastor and elder and called all people to be deacons.

He begins to impart to him some of the divine mysteries of the faith, namely the incarnation and the atonement.

But he then begins to warn the young Timothy of the dangers that's ahead of him, the dangers that are a whole, you know, poised to the church in particular that many will depart from the faith and will go themselves to deceiving spirits, teaching demons.

He goes on in verse 6 to demolish the young Timothy by saying this, If you put these things before the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus and be training in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that you have followed.

Having nothing to do with the irreverences of the ministers, rather train yourself for godliness. For while God has trained us to value godliness as a value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the lifetime.

The same is trustworthy and deserving of acceptance. For to this end toil and strife and to be powerful, set on the living

God who is the Savior of all people, especially those who believe. Now we will go to verse 11.

Command and teach these things. So Paul's admonishment to Timothy is not just to receive these truths and store them in his own heart but rather it's also to command and teach these things to others which in part

Paul is demonstrating that there is authority vested in the overseer, authority vested in the preacher, authority vested in those who are rooting for the world of God and the people of God.

And we strive and we call to that end to bring forth this message. He says,

Let not despise your youth, but set believers an example of speech and common love.

It is like from the voice of public reading, of scripture to interpretation, to teaching not to neglect the gift that was given to you by prophecy and the account of your later hands.

Practice these things. Immerse yourself in them. I love that concept there. Practice these things.

Immerse yourself in them so that all may see your progress. This is a very important text. Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching.

Persist in this for by doing so you save both yourself and your hearers.

So clearly there is instruction here for the church and for those who have been vested in authority through being qualified as a pastor and elder or overseer.

So again, this scripture does not negate or deny the authority of the church or of qualified persons to bring forth

God's word. Any thoughts or questions? Does that mean that pastors are mini -posts?

Some kind of act that way. Some pastors are little mini -posts of their own little empire.

And I think that there is a response to my dad yesterday who is also a former

Jehovah's Witness but he still believes in it. He is interrelational with a woman who is a

Pentecostal and he was telling me how the church pastor there was very upset with her because she was supposed to donate 500 dollars to the

U .S. and she didn't want to do it. And sometimes pastors in Protestant circles and fundamentalist circles act like little tiny posts, like little tiny charities and they have paid their doses so now they are going to be punished and sometimes

Protestants and Charismatic and Magistratic you know, posts and Catholics have to guard ourselves from false teaching which is one of the expectations that Paul gives to Timothy to guard ourselves from false teachings whether worthy or not.

Now if you ever watch James White painting the River of the Catholic you'll find that the River of the Catholic will often make interesting statements

I forget which preacher it was but he was painting the River of the Catholic and he asked the question are there some popes who are now and the priest said yes and he said some popes have top damsel hair so he said yes technically then, some popes may be in hell right now

Is that who you want as head of your church? Is that who you want to be the Monarch of the

Christ who is the representative of the Christ Church? Clearly not. This is why we have to have social security as a basis because by it we test all things including those who hold positions of authority in the church and we hold them accountable to the

Lord God Does that make sense? So God's Word is like freedom and in pastors, preachers, bishops you know, overseers everyone is subject to Scripture Amen What is an overseer again?

An overseer is a preacher who uses three maybe four terms to describe the office

You have pastor elder pastor means shepherd elder meaning he is someone who is mature in faith and then you have overseer which is where we get the word bishop from in Old English Some people have thought that individuals have different tiers or different offices and we did see, maybe a professor from the early church where you did have a distinction between elder pastor and also overseer or bishop and then you have archbishops and then you have what the

Catholic have which is you have priest bishops, archbishops and then carvels and then you've got the and so they have really made a huge I don't think that overseer, pastor is the same and then you have deacon which is certainly the same because we see archbishops first so there is clearly a distinction between servants, the word deacon has to mean servant, but also a little more into the analogy where that should mean someone who is brought who is dragged through the dirt so if you see your deacon in church and he's not out there enough, just make sure you drag him through the dirt and get him back to the original meaning of the word so you were going to say something?

Yeah I think verse 9 of what you were just bringing a second ago, how would you interpret that verse in regards to that question that we had at the at the forum a couple weeks ago?

I think it's verse 9 where it says because we have our hopes set on the living

God, who is the savior of all people, especially those who believe how would you interpret that in regards to that question that we had whether everyone is saved or not?

And so God is the savior of those who sin and friends, you'll hear me say this in pastoral analysis we're preaching that Jesus is

Lord He's Lord right? Jesus is

King whether or not you acknowledge that He's King He's Savior whether or not you, regardless of that He's still the

Savior now there's a general sense in which He's the Savior King, Lord, that's true of everyone regardless of whether you're excuse me my deacon but notice that the emphasis especially of those who believe so it's not like Paul saying okay there's a two tier salvation where there's people who are saved and kind of saved

Scripture says in Hebrews 9 that when He saves He saves the most that we are saved from everlasting salvation and so there is a general way in which just like we have the

Mormon here we're going to have that discussion there is a general sense in which

God is the father of us all there's a general sense in which Christ is the Savior of us all but especially towards those who believe and then there's a particular sense in which people who are under the

Lord Jesus are particular sons particularly saved and particularly you know obviously placed in a position of non -believers are not because they're not inherited from the promise of the

King and so I would simply say that this is a text that demonstrates that God Christ is the

Savior of everyone but in particular to those who believe so that salvation is still particular to those who believe you cannot be saved apart from the saving of Jesus Christ so that takes account more of what all the

Scriptures say on that but it could be seen many have used this text like Elisha's got it brought up to kind of sell interpersonalism and say anyone can save anyone can you know you don't have to believe in God because he's the

Savior of everyone but no that's not what I think the text is trying to draw. If that were the case what would be the warnings according to verses 1 -4 why be worried about being misled by false teachers why be worried about being led astray by the deceitful servants of teaching even at the end we're all saved anyways so there are things that kind of take into account when we're looking at the church like that does that kind of help a little bit?

Anyone else have a question? So social church is not denial yet according to the church there's still place for that in God's economy the next thing is social church in verse 8 social church is not a denial of the word of God the word of God has at times been spoken what does he mean by that?

what does he mean by that as a statement? social church is not a denial of the word of God has at times been spoken

I mean it was not available to most people correct there's times in which

God's word hasn't been accessible to all people that's not necessarily true today because Bible is the number one every day, every year every month, every week plus you've got access to our phones now you can download an app it's completely accessible what else do you think he meant by this?

what else do you think he meant by this? the truth is not denial of the word of God has at times spoken could be reliable I mean that was how it wasn't always written

I mean you know before it was written it was actually still God breathing that's right how does this relate to the

Roman Catholic tradition in particular? how does this relate to the Roman Catholic tradition?

they have like an oral tradition right? correct the Roman Catholic church says there is an oral tradition that has called if you go to a mass on Sunday you'll notice that they'll do certain things that where do they get that from?

it's not necessarily scriptural but they'll say no this dates back to oral traditions that God's oral tradition the oral tradition of God's word has come down to us in such a way that we do things differently than possible so they would rely not just that God's spoken to us writtenly but also verbally through the oral traditions of the church does that make sense?

now social truth is a denied aspect of that we fall short of that there are also traditions that God clearly has passed on through obviously

I would go astray and argue that the precedent is set forth in scripture so it's not something that's new or foreign to scripture but that God has spoken particularly in Hebrews 1 it says that God has spoken in various ways by the name of Jesus the prophet and by his son

Jesus Christ so again it's not a denial that I think it says here

Protestants argue for the completeness of the scriptures while Roman Catholic apologists insist the Bible is not complete in and of itself and there would be supplementation either in oral traditions that carry verbs revelation or in traditional interpretations so we would deny that the scripture itself is not sufficient or at least be supplanted by oral tradition we would reject that but that is not a denial that God has at times that God's word has at times and it's spoken verbally verbally spoken so what we mean by that you know

John chapter 21 John's gospel says that Jesus said many things that were not recorded when

Jesus spoke was his words inspired? even the ones that were not recorded right?

so God has spoken in many ways and many times recorded in the scripture that were clearly inspired other times when

Jesus not all things were recorded in the scripture only that which was necessary for our instruction necessary for our instruction fifth part is

Socratura does not entail the rejection or denial of a formal tradition that's important because sometimes when we think of Socratura we think oh that means we have to throw away traditions but that's not true in the reformed setting of our tradition why?

because most people most people in the reformed camp tend to be creedal tend to be confessional which means that we hold to things like for instance our church the 1689 which is a doctrinal significant but also has a rich heritage of a tradition so do we deny tradition by accepting those who deny it?

no no we reject so sometimes we get a larger reaction to the word tradition because we think either from a

Catholic perspective we can say oh traditions are biblical but not every tradition is a biblical

I think my experience as a journalist I've heard the allergy that you have to anything that looks like tradition even though they do have their own set of traditions so for instance you couldn't even say god bless you it's on scenes because it's superstitious it's a tradition that comes from babylon from pagans from christianism anything that has to do with christianism or false religion we don't want to have the appearance of that so much so that gets you to the 1930s when the

Jehovah's adopt their names and their solicits and actually create their own calendar with their own view because they don't want to use the pagan calendar of the world and that only lasted less than a year and so they couldn't use it but there are so large traditions of the world and paganism that they even wanted to change their own calendar so that's the extreme that one can take from shielding one's self from all the things of biblical traditions so we don't want to be paranoid we don't want to be spiritual hypocrites and going back and forth on matters but we understand that we want to project onto biblical traditions we do want to go back to the heritage of biblical faith of those who come before us those who were faithful gods from the apostles to the early church fathers to Augustine all the way to Wycliffe we have in Calvin some of the other great men of faith who we want to emulate their faiths and walk in the tradition and the last one is so to turn not an eye on the whole

Holy Spirit and guiding the lightening of the church and so what could be the pitfall amongst reformed writers is that they created an unrelatable trinity of the

Father the Son and the Holy Bible where the Holy Spirit is kind of not in the picture there's a book written more than 10 years ago by Francis Chan there's good things and bad things about this guy but I love the philosophy of the book of Forgotten God which was the forgotten place of the word of the trinity of the

Holy Spirit in the concept of trinity and so it's so often that we forget the role of the

Holy Spirit in the church and so the church should not be a rejection of the Holy Spirit we're being activated in the life of God's people in the life of the church today and so the

Holy Spirit is still alive and active, the Holy Spirit is still engulfing our hearts, the

Holy Spirit is still reigning above the hearts of God's people so we don't know the general role of the Holy Spirit but what we do want to do is guard ourselves from blaspheming the

Holy Spirit and attributing to it things that aren't really from Him and we use this as a small meaning of blasphemy we attribute things to the

Spirit not that they are part of the sin but a small blasphemy and there are times when Christians often make the mistake of saying you know

I'm praying to God to only do this and we attribute to God our bad decisions often and we say it's the

Holy Spirit that told me this I'm going to do this especially in the physical culture, don't ever attribute to the

Holy Spirit that God told me that I need to get your number or something like that this is how we do it,

I'm telling you what you want so don't do that don't put it on the

Spirit your bad motives and ideas but again we also want to be loved by the

Spirit and that's an important thing to remember so again to summarize soul scripture is not a claim that the

Bible contains all knowledge it's not a claim that the Bible is an exalted calendar for all religious knowledge it's not a denial of the

Church's authority to teach God's truth it's not a denial that God's Word has a time to speak it's not a rejection of any kind or abuse of tradition it's not a denial of the role of the

Holy Spirit in guiding the Church today so what is soul scripture? we have five minutes to cover this now soul scripture first and foremost is, simply stated is a scripture that allows the

Scriptures are sufficient to function as a regula fide or the infallible rule of faith for the

Church the Scriptures are sufficient to be the infallible rule of faith for the

Church pretty self explanatory the Bible is enough to tell us what to believe how to behave and what to do pretty simple second is that all that one must believe in the

Church is found in Scripture and in no other source which is to say if you were in a desert island all down to the

Bible the Bible would be enough to lead you to a blessed life it would be enough to teach and guide you to all things provided by God enough in that the

Scriptures play a huge role in this because one cannot come to serve God apart from the individual spirit so it's not like from an academic sense alone there's a surge of that is necessary the natural man cannot come up and things are served so there is a true surge of that can't be overlooked and the third is that that which is not found in Scripture either directly by necessary application is not binding it along to the

Christian so again this is not an argument for a limitless disposition which says it's not explicitly stated in Scripture there are a lot of things that would go flying out the window just because there is an explicit statement on this things that are very important to the

Scriptures like the definitive price, the trinity there's so many things that are so essential to Christian life and doctrine that aren't necessarily explicitly

ABCD laid out for us but we get there through exegesis of permanence, taking a whole lot into account and coming to the line of those true theological conclusions the next is simple and it's the

Scripture reveals those things necessary for salvation and so you don't need to look you don't need to hear any other thing other than God's Word remember what he said, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God the word of Christ this is what leads to eternal life there are no you and the only true

God and he who gives to the Lord Jesus Christ John 17 verse 3 so God's Word is true

Jesus said in John 17 Father your word is true it's sufficient it's sufficient especially for salvation and of all the traditions all traditions are subject to the higher authority of Scripture so Jesus says to the parishioners to make no avoid the word of God by the traditions of man what were they doing?

they were taking traditions and laying them on top of God's Word so you know

God must observe remember the Sabbath day people and what they did is they began to add more and more regulations kind of like the

U .S. Constitution there's no greater political document than the U .S. Constitution what did our Congress do over the last almost 250 years added layer upon layer upon layer regulation upon those simple truths and simple words so we kind of lost the beginning of our founding document so it's such a true

Scripture and it's such a true in the time of Jesus the Pharisee class was adding and adding and adding layer upon layer upon layer upon God's Word and they made no avoid the word of God all traditions are subject to the word of God God's Word is the supreme rule of faith any thoughts or questions on this subject when it says you value

Scripture so that not only the learned but the unlearned may be in the ordinary things does that mean like by reading or by hearing yes so it means essentially that anyone the common person, the educated man the laity, the clergy everyone has a common foundation of truth in Scripture and we can all come to that same common truth whether you're an ordinary person or an unlearned we can all come to this common grace of truth in Scripture so the ordinary means would just be however you hear it yeah the ordinary means is the word okay well that's right

God thank you so much for today thank you Lord for your teaching and your word being so clear Father we pray

God that you give us grace to receive these truths not just how these things might emerge but also

Lord that we would use these truths in such a way that it would benefit others Father that it would benefit those

Roman Catholics and our allies who we may know who we may love and we pray God that we would have encouraging conversations with those outside of our framework in regard to these issues we pray

Lord that you would help us to see the Scriptures as the complete will of faith as the sufficient guide for the believer for all things of faith and life and happiness we pray