Protestants and a Churchless Tradition: “Sola” vs. “Solo” Scriptura

[Sola_Fide]

All the proof I need is what the Church holds as the understanding, since the Church is the bulwark and the foundation for the truth, and not some English Protestant scholars with an agenda.

From the beginning until now, the Church has ordained its clergy by the laying of the hands, which is the biblical and apostolic tradition. Rather, you introduce falsehoods and make claimed that the laity were ordaining bishops when there is no writing which gives credence to that (except of course if you twist the wording to mean what you want it to men t the exclusion of how the Church has understood it and carried it down).

There you go. All the proof you need is what your church tells you. Why even debate Erowe about this? You've declared what your final authority is.

 

[erowe1]

TER, notice how far away you are from finding support for your position, even if ever passage of the Bible you point to said what you thought it did.

What you want to prove is, not only that the apostles appointed bishops by laying on hands, but that this was the only means of someone becoming a bishop in any church anywhere in the world at that time, and that no true bishops can exist except for those whose bishoprics can be traced back by a succession of bishops appointing their successors by a laying on of hands going back to those original bishops appointed by the apostles laying on of hands.

You have Acts 14:23, which makes no mention of laying on of hands.
You have Acts 6:6, which makes no mention of deacons, much less bishops.
You have 2 Timothy 1:6, which makes no mention of bishops, nor of appointing anyone to anything.
And so on.

And I don't even object to the claim that the apostles probably did appoint bishops by laying on hands. The problem is, even if they did, you can't leap from that to your belief that no other bishops existed outside that and have no way of accounting for the historical likelihood that many did and the mention of that fact in the Didache.

 

[TER]

But that is the entirety of my claim that you found so objectionable.

My whole point of this discussion with you these past few days has not even started to get to the main point because we cannot get past the simple observation clearly expressed in the Bible of an apostolic ritual of laying of hands to those whom they ordained as ministers of the Word.

Notice how many different things you're combining here. The apostles did appoint some bishops. But were these the only bishops that existed?

The only ones that received the Holy Spirit through the hands of the Apostles. This doesn't mean that the Holy Spirit may not have worked in those others (I m not putting limits on the Holy Spirit), but rather tht there was indeed a real succession starting from the Apostles which existed.

Did they do this by laying on hands? The Bible doesn't tell us.

The Bible doesn't say that the laity ordained Bishops. But you make that claim, no?

If they did lay on hands, did this transfer the Holy Spirit to these bishops? Most definitely not.

Says you. The Scriptural accounts and teachings of the Church Fathers would disagree.

The only people who would be ordained bishops would be believers who already were indwelled by the Holy Spirit.

Yes, of course, as baptized AND Chrismated members of the Church, the Holy Spirit oreads indwelled in them. What was different in ordination was that theough the laying of the hands, they had been given authority by the Holy Spirit to be leaders and teachers of the Church.

But the Didache does say that. And the only way you could still claim something like this is by deliberately misrepresenting what I've said. I never denied anything in the Scripture.

It seems to me you keep ignoring certain parts you don't like.

I don't know. As a historical source I read it critically. Off hand I can't think of anything that it indicates was going on among the Christian communities it represents where I would say that such a thing never really happened. But given that it talks about laity appointing bishops over themselves, how could I say that such a thing never happened? What possible reason would I have to say that it didn't? And how could I explain the Didache mentioning it?

Well, you can start by learning abou the Traditon and understanding of the Church...

 

[erowe1]

From the beginning until now, the Church has ordained its clergy by the laying of the hands,

You claim this. But you don't have any actual reason for believing it.

You might resort to a circular argument and say that those clergy who weren't appointed this way don't belong to what you call the Church, and so don't count. But the truth is, you can't even support this claim for those you do call the Church. You have no proof that there really exists a succession of your church's bishops going back to the apostles by a series of laying on of hands generation after generation. You have no way to account for all those bishops in the earliest generations of the Church who did not receive their bishoprics that way, and who would go on to be the forebears of bishops in your denomination.

 

[erowe1]

My whole point of this discussion with you these past few days has not even started to get to the main point because we cannot get past the simple observation clearly expressed in the Bible of an apostolic ritual of laying of hands to those whom they ordained as ministers of the Word.

If your main point can't be gotten to until you first get people to concede something that you can't prove to begin with, then you're out of luck.

The only ones that received the Holy Spirit through the hands of the Apostles.

I don't know how you meant to complete this sentence fragment. The only ones that received the Holy Spirit through the hands of the apostles were what? Were bishops? No. That's not true.

there was indeed a real succession starting from the Apostles which existed.

Probably. And there were also bishops outside that.

And in none of these cases did it involve a transference of the Holy Spirit.

The Bible doesn't say that the laity ordained Bishops. But you make that claim, no?

Yes. We've been over this.

Says you. The Scriptural accounts and teachings of the Church Fathers would disagree.

This is false. You have had many chances to provide support for this claim, and as of yet you haven't been able to come up with any.

Yes, of course, as baptized AND Chrismated members of the Church, the Holy Spirit oreads indwelled in them. What was different in ordination was that theough the laying of the hands, they had been given authority by the Holy Spirit to be leaders and teachers of the Church.

But that's not what you said before. You said it transferred the Holy Spirit to them.

It seems to me you keep ignoring certain parts you don't like.

You've had opportunities to show these to me and you still can't come up with any.

Well, you can start by learning abou the Traditon and understanding of the Church...

Thanks. I tend to do that. In fact, that's often how I know that a lot of what you say is false and can prove it.

 

[TER]

TER, notice how far away you are from finding support for your position, even if ever passage of the Bible you point to said what you thought it did.

I m not finding it hard at all to find support. It is you who are ignoring Scripture, twisting words around, and ignoring the Tradition of the Christian Church and the teachings of the Church Fathers.

What you want to prove is, not only that the apostles appointed bishops by laying on hands, but that this was the only means of someone becoming a bishop in any church anywhere in the world at that time, and that no true bishops can exist except for those whose bishoprics can be traced back by a succession of bishops appointing their successors by a laying on of hands going back to those original bishops appointed by the apostles laying on of hands.

I'm sure the gnostics appointed their leaders in varying ways as well. I am simply saying that the practice of the Apostles were to lay hands on those who they ordained as ministers and leaders of the Church.

You have Acts 14:23, which makes no mention of laying on of hands.
You have Acts 6:6, which makes no mention of deacons, much less bishops.
You have 2 Timothy 1:6, which makes no mention of bishops, nor of appointing anyone to anything.
And so on.

Lol, word games while missing the forest from the trees. This is honestly getting tiring.

And I don't even object to the claim that the apostles probably did appoint bishops by laying on hands. The problem is, even if they did, you can't leap from that to your belief that no other bishops existed outside that.

I m simply saying that by the time St. Ignatius became bishop ovr all of Antioch, there did indeed exist a Church which had developed from the succesion of laying of hands by the Apostles. Did other communities exist? Probably! But that still does not deny the fact that there did indeed exist one Church traced directly back to the Apostles, of whom St. Ignatius was a member of and defended against the various gnostics churches who were distorting the faith.

 

[erowe1]

I m not finding it hard at all to find support. It is you who are ignoring Scripture, twisting words around, and ignoring the Tradition of the Christian Church and the teachings of the Church Fathers.

Such as?

I'm sure the gnostics appointed their leaders in varying ways as well.

Source?

I am simply saying that the practice of the Apostles were to lay hands on those who they ordained as ministers and leaders of the Church.

They probably sometimes did. But you're saying a lot more than that.

Lol, word games while missing the forest from the trees. This is honestly getting tiring.

How is it word games? You keep saying that all those texts say things they don't. If your position is so well supported, why can't you find anything in the Bible that actually supports it without changing or adding ideas to what it actually says?

I m simply saying that by the time St. Ignatius became bishop ovr all of Antioch, there did indeed exist a Church which had developed from the succesion of laying of hands by the Apostles.

But even this you can't prove. Some bishops in Ignatius's day may have come from a succession going back to the apostles, others may have had a succession going back to bishops who were first appointed some other way by some other people besides the apostles. You have no way of knowing.

We have these later succession lists that were made up saying that before Ignatius was Evodius, who was supposedly ordained as the bishop of all of Antioch by Peter. But we know for sure that these claims are false, since, as you concede, in the apostles' day, the terms bishop and presbyter were synonyms, and in the apostles' generation there was never a single one over a whole city, but always a multitude. So what succession really did lie behind Ignatius? Did it go back to the apostles? Nobody knows.

there did indeed exist one Church traced directly back to the Apostles

I agree. It's just that a succession of bishops has nothing to do with defining the limits of this church. This apostolic lineage is a lineage of like faith passed down generation after generation and indwelling of the Holy Spirit in all true believers from the time of the apostles on.

 

[TER]

Well then, we agree to disagree!

I would like to apologize for all the spelling mistakes above as I am typing on an iPad with a cracked screen!

Good luck with you erowe. Lent is approaching and I will not be indulging in these circular arguments with you, for the sake of both of us. You believe as you will. When the time is right, we can debate these things again. Right now, I have said all I have to say on this topic. May the Lord bless you.

 

[Eagles' Wings]

Where does it mention deacons there?

What is your definition of a deacon? Is there such an office today, as you envision it? When reading Acts 6, it seems to me that what is termed deacon, for this specific was purpose, was someone who served the needs of the faithful as a kind of administrator or manager of goods and services. A much needed task and a holy one as well.

 

[jmdrake]

//

 

[Ronin Truth]

Whew!

And the final answer is, was, shall be, never will be, who knows, who cares, a tie, game called on account of the weather, etc., etc., ad nausem, ad infinitum?

 

[erowe1]

What is your definition of a deacon? Is there such an office today, as you envision it? When reading Acts 6, it seems to me that what is termed deacon, for this specific was purpose, was someone who served the needs of the faithful as a kind of administrator or manager of goods and services. A much needed task and a holy one as well.

It's not bad to call them deacons, from the Greek diaconoi, which means servants. But Acts 6 doesn't use that term. It uses the term diakonia (service) for what they were to do (serving tables for widows), just as it uses that same word for what the apostles did (service of the word).

The books of Philippians, 1-2 Timothy, and Titus do refer to an office in the church by the title deacon (diakonos), and these books don't give strict definitions delimiting what they are and are not to do. Nor do these books say anything about certain requirements for a ritual to be done in appointing them to the office. I would say that, using the Bible as their guide, churches today have some freedom in how this office functions in them. Acts 6 may give us a picture of the kind of thing that is appropriate for deacons. But there's no reason given in the text to see it as relating specifically to this church office or to make it normative for it.

 

[fisharmor]

Whew!

And the final answer is, was, shall be, never will be, who knows, who cares, a tie, game called on account of the weather, etc., etc., ad nausem, ad infinitum?

I'd still like to see more on the seemingly pedantic issue of the meaning of χειροτονησαντες.

And I admit that erowe1 makes a convincing argument. It's not convincing me, but there's a reason why.

I've been a computer programmer for a while now, and I know when to back out of trying to understand a million lines of code and take a look at what the program is actually doing.
And I'm not afraid to recognize a program that kicks people in the nuts, call it out, and scrap it.

By your fruits you shall know them. I knew Sola Scriptura Christians for 40 years.
Got kicked in the nuts more than a few times, too.
Opened up the code, and discovered that the code there is its own purpose.

A program which doesn't produce valid output is just taking up hard drive space.

 

[Ronin Truth]

I'd still like to see more on the seemingly pedantic issue of the meaning of χειροτονησαντες.

And I admit that erowe1 makes a convincing argument. It's not convincing me, but there's a reason why.

I've been a computer programmer for a while now, and I know when to back out of trying to understand a million lines of code and take a look at what the program is actually doing.
And I'm not afraid to recognize a program that kicks people in the nuts, call it out, and scrap it.

By your fruits you shall know them. I knew Sola Scriptura Christians for 40 years.
Got kicked in the nuts more than a few times, too.
Opened up the code, and discovered that the code there is its own purpose.

A program which doesn't produce valid output is just taking up hard drive space.

Retired 40+ year programmer here, so I understand, and pretty much agree.

Odds are 20% of the code does 80% of the work. Optimize and top down inline that 20%.

 

[jmdrake]

I'd still like to see more on the seemingly pedantic issue of the meaning of χειροτονησαντες.

And I admit that erowe1 makes a convincing argument. It's not convincing me, but there's a reason why.

I've been a computer programmer for a while now, and I know when to back out of trying to understand a million lines of code and take a look at what the program is actually doing.
And I'm not afraid to recognize a program that kicks people in the nuts, call it out, and scrap it.

By your fruits you shall know them. I knew Sola Scriptura Christians for 40 years.
Got kicked in the nuts more than a few times, too.
Opened up the code, and discovered that the code there is its own purpose.

A program which doesn't produce valid output is just taking up hard drive space.

I'm a programmer too. One thing to note is that just because you found a bug in one program doesn't mean a similar or worse bug isn't in another program. Sorry that you had a bad experience in your Lutheran church. And I would say the same if you had a bad experience in the Eastern Orthodox church. But there are people in every church that do not represent their church well. A while back I posted a video of two EO priests leading a crowd to vandalize a display table set up by Seventh Day Adventists. I was happy to see TER distance himself from them. And yes there are some SDAs who are just as bad. You will find slime in every church. That is why I put my faith is Jesus alone. Churches are great resources for Christians. But they are the vehicle, not the destination.

Edit: One more thing. That two priests who had hands laid on them through "apostolic succession" would do something like that says one of two things. Either the laying on of hands in apostolic succession does not guarantee the transfer of the Holy Spirit or the Holy Spirit actually does encourage religious persecution. Now it's clear to me from reading my Bible that God's true New Testament church is persecuted but never engages in persecuting. Jesus said "Blessed are you when men shall revile you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake." And Jesus told his disciples when they came to a town that wouldn't receive their message they were to "wipe the dust" off their feet and move on. Once the church under Constantine began to persecute dissenters, it no longer matched the New Testament description of the church.

 

[Ronin Truth]

K.I.S.S.


There are several very valid reasons that Jesus really loves the children.

 

[TER]

Churches are great resources for Christians. But they are the vehicle, not the destination.

Being a member of Christ's Body is indeed the destination. Our salvation is tied to being united with Him and our entrance into the Kingdom. Again, that does not mean that those who are not baptized Orthodox Christians will not find salvation, but rather to correct you that the Church is not a mere vehicle, it is indeed a major part of the destination. At least, that is how it was understood by the Christian teachers and saints of the first few centuries.

Edit: One more thing. That two priests who had hands laid on them through "apostolic succession" would do something like that says one of two things. Either the laying on of hands in apostolic succession does not guarantee the transfer of the Holy Spirit or the Holy Spirit actually does encourage religious persecution. Now it's clear to me from reading my Bible that God's true New Testament church is persecuted but never engages in persecuting. Jesus said "Blessed are you when men shall revile you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake." And Jesus told his disciples when they came to a town that wouldn't receive their message they were to "wipe the dust" off their feet and move on. Once the church under Constantine began to persecute dissenters, it no longer matched the New Testament description of the church.

That is pure baloney, my friend. You mean to tell me that people who are ordained by the laying of hands in apostolic succession can still sin! Shocking! Of course they can! This isn't some kind of news flash. Was not Judas also given the Holy Spirit before he betrayed Christ? What those two Russian priests did in that video tearing down the info booth of the SDA (who happened to be parked on a Sunday morning right outside of an Orthodox Church in an Orthodox country, IOW, a provocative thing to do in the first place by the SDAs), the priests probably thought they were imitating Christ's actions towards the moneylenders in the Temple.

Right or wrong (and I think what they did was wrong), they thought they were doing it to protect the faithful and for the glory of God, much as how many people try to justify themselves in their actions. It was their Bishop who reprimanded them for doing what they did against the SDAs and disciplined them, which just underscores the necessity of the Bishop and the reason why by the end of the first century AD the Apostles had established Bishops as heads of communities and cities. Not because it wasn't needed, but because it was. And this process has been the way for 2000 years, even when individual clergy or Emperors (who are neither leaders of the Church or ordained into the priesthood or clergy) did things which were sinful.

Constantine was not a priest or a bishop. He was a fallible politician who was not baptized until his deathbed yet who actually stopped much more persecution then he had inflicted and who single handedly saved more Christian lives from persecution than any other person born from a mother and father. So, this pointing at Constantine to put a knife in the side of the catholic Church is without merit. Of course you may provide a long lawerly response to this post which you often do, but you do so having read little of the Church fathers of the early centuries (therefore lacking much knowledge about the life and the challenges of the Church around that time) and demonstrating a completely ill-informed, slanted and prejudiced understanding of the time period and the risks Constantine took to defend Christianity. In other words, your opinions on this matter leave a lot to be desired and should be taken with a grain of salt.

 

[jmdrake]

Being a member of Christ's Body is indeed the destination.

Wrong. The destination is heaven. The church is merely a vehicle to help you get there. There will be many people who are members of every church who will not make the final destination.

Our salvation is tied to being united with Him and our entrance into the Kingdom. Again, that does not mean that those who are not baptized Orthodox Christians will not find salvation, but rather to correct you that the Church is not a mere vehicle, it is indeed a major part of the destination. At least, that is how it was understood by the Christian teachers and saints of the first few centuries.

That's nice. You basically just said the church is the vehicle and not the destination without realizing it.

That is pure baloney, my friend. You mean to tell me that people who are ordained by the laying of hands in apostolic succession can still sin! Shocking! Of course they can! This isn't some kind of news flash. Was not Judas also given the Holy Spirit before he betrayed Christ? What those two Russian priests did in that video tearing down the info booth of the SDA (who happened to be parked right outside of an Orthodox Church in an Orthodox country, IOW, a provocative thing to do in the first place by the SDAs), the priests probably thought they were imitating Christ's actions towards the moneylenders in the Temple.

No it's not "baloney." And here's what you missing. Did you notice the crowd following them? That's because they were connected to the church and not to Jesus. A connection to Jesus means you think for yourself and you don't let some pastor, priest, bishop, pope think for you. As for Judas being filled with the Holy Spirit, I went back and checked and there is no record of that. Remember that Jesus told the disciples to wait in Jerusalem after His ascension and tarry for the Holy Spirit. And when Jesus breathed on the disciples and said "receive the Holy Spirit", Judas was not there. I know Jesus went out when the disciples went out earlier two by two healing and such. That suggests that God sometimes makes temporary use of people who are not Spirit filled, at least in the way the disciples were filled on the day of Pentacost. Note that when Saul was seeking to kill David, the Bible says that at one point the Spirit fell on Saul and Saul began to prophesy. That didn't make Saul a prophet the same way that Samuel and Nathan were prophets.

Also I never say that people filled with the Holy Spirit do not fall into sin. But that act was premeditated and it was an act of leaders misleading an entire crowd of people. There is no example of any apostle post the day of Pentacost doing anything like that. That said, let's go back to Judas. Let's assume that Judas really was filled with the Holy Spirit. I assume you believe that, at the very least, the Spirit left him before He betrayed Christ and ultimately hung himself right? So take a Judas like figure you continued pretending after the New Testament church was established. Imagine if such a figure laid hands on someone else. What does that mean for that person's apostolic succession to have hands laid on him by someone he thought had the Holy Spirit but really didn't?

And blaming the SDAs for the "provocative" act of having a booth set up in a parking lot near a church? That sounds like Islamofascist reasoning. That religious people would feel provoked by other religious people evangelizing on public property is the very mentality that leads to persecution. If the SDAs had up a Charlie Hebdo type graphic that would be one thing. If they were blaring across the loudspeaker that all EO Christians were going to hell I would consider that provocative too. But just a display booth on public land? That's what Christians are supposed to do. I guess Muslims are right to feel provoked by someone preaching the gospel within site of a mosque?

Right or wrong (and I think what they did was wrong), they thought they were doing it to protect the faithful and for the glory of God, much as how many people try to justify themselves in their actions. It was their Bishop who reprimanded them for doing what they did against the SDAs and disciplined them, which just underscores the necessity of the Bishop and the reason why by the end of the first century AD the Apostles had established Bishops as heads of communities and cities. Not because it wasn't needed, but because it was. And this process has been the way for 2000 years, even when individual clergy or Emperors (who are neither leaders of the Church or ordained into the priesthood or clergy) did things which were sinful.

Good for the bishop. (I never saw the follow up story to that.) But that also exposes the weakness of the system. Say if one of these men rose to the position of bishop? It's great that modern bishops realize persecution is wrong. But clearly that was not always the case. What happens when a man like these priests rises to the position of bishop? In the structure Jesus set up, where nobody lords over anybody but everyone a servant, someone doesn't have to be "over" someone to reprimand him for doing wrong. Why do men feel the need to improve on what Jesus set up?

Constantine was not a priest or a bishop. He was a fallible politician who was not baptized until his deathbed yet who actually stopped much more persecution then he had inflicted and who single handedly saved more Christian lives from persecution than any other person born from a mother and father. So, this pointing at Constantine to put a knife in the side of the catholic Church is without merit. Of course you may provide a long lawerly response to this post which you often do, but you do so having read little of the Church fathers of the early centuries (therefore lacking much knowledge about the life and the challenges of the Church around that time) and demonstrating a completely ill-informed, slanted and prejudiced understanding of the time period and the risks Constantine took to defend Christianity. In other words, your opinions on this matter leave a lot to be desired and should be taken with a grain of salt.

I don't need to be "lawyerly" and you're kind of proving my point. While Constantine wasn't "the church", he did what he did with the church's blessing then and continued blessing now. Saddam Hussein did a lot of good to protect Christians in Iraq. I still don't consider him a saint. (I would consider Tariq Aziz for sainthood though if I was into that. There is no record of Aziz ever participating in any of Saddam's crimes except for suppressing a particular Shiite Islamic terrorist group that tried to kill him. That terrorist group is now in power in Iraq.) This is the point. The church, if it was following what Jesus laid out, should have told Constantine straight up "We appreciate what you are doing to protect us, but you cannot use the power of the state to suppress heresy. We can deal with heresy through the power of the gospel." That's what Jesus would have done. When His disciples asked Him if they could call down fire on a town that rejected them, He flatly refused.

Edit: Final point. You've missed the main reason I brought this story up to fisharmour. He said he left the Lutheran church because of the "fruits" he saw in the members. Why then discount bad fruit in your own church as "just bad apples?" There is good and bad fruit in every church. If the fact that there are people in church X that give you a "kick in the nuts" is itself a reason to leave then frankly you can't join any church.

 

[TER]

I would have to disagree with many of your points jmdrake. When you actually put a little effort and read the writings of the Church Fathers about what the Church is, about the difficulties they had to encounter and deal with in their specific day and age, and the age old understanding of the episcopy and how the Holy Spirit guides the Church in a Church full of sinners and in a world which contends against them, then we might find more things to agree upon. But you choose to ignore the writings and experience of the saints of the first several centuries to justify your opinions and your Church's ahistorical and unapostolic interpretaions and traditions. If you wish to teach me about the origins of Seventh Day Adventists and the lives and writings of Ellen White, then do so, and I will submit to your knowledge and authority on the matter having assummed you have studied these things and actually read their writings and the difficulties they were going through. But when you start mentioning things about the early century Christians and the Nicene period of the Church when you are obviously lacking much knowledge about it, I unfortunately cannot place much value on it. Erowe is very misguided but at least he makes the effort to learn about the early Church and the writings of the Church Fathers. Blinded as your are with Solo Scriptura, he at least makes an effort to truly understand how the early Church worshipped and lived to learn what the apostolic faith is. Rather, you ignore this important facet and submit to the authority of Ellen White and the founders of your Church and then past judgement on me because I submit to authorities that predate her by 1700 years and a Church which has been around and can trace itself back to the very beginning. We all can say and think that it is God Who is our only authority, but God too has placed authorities over us in this world and established teachers and prophets and leaders and clergy. You have chosen your leaders and I have chosen mine.

 

[Ronin Truth]

Almost everything "institutional" just finally ends up being really creepy and the exact opposite of the original intentions.