Lessons from a Blind Man

A blind man was invited to attend a friend’s wedding. The couple were being married in a village church that was well known for its picturesque qualities and its beautiful grounds. The guests commented on all of this at the reception afterwards and again when the photos came back. They were struck by how well the church, the grounds and the setting all looked. When the blind man heard all this talk he thought to himself, ‘But didn’t they hear the bell?’ For him, the bell that pealed to welcome the bride and celebrate their marriage had been magnificent. The air was filled with its vibrating jubilation. He was amazed at the atmosphere of joy and solemnity that the bell created for the occasion. Everyone else seemed to have missed that part of the ceremony. Although he could not see, perhaps because he could not see, his hearing was very alert. He heard the beauty that others missed. The sounds that passed others by touched him very deeply.

This morning’s gospel is the story of a blind man, a blind beggar. Although he was blind, his hearing was very sensitive. The gospel says that he heard that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by. Although he could not see Jesus passing by, he made contact with Jesus through his sense of hearing. His finely tuned hearing to the presence of Jesus led him to using another sense to make contact with Jesus, his sense of speech. He cried out, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me.’ Even when people around Jesus, including perhaps some of Jesus’ disciples, told him to keep quiet, he shouted all the louder, ‘Son of David, have pity on me.’ Even though he could not see Jesus, he was determined to make contact with him through his gift of speech, through his urgent prayer from his heart. His prayer was an act of faith on his part. He recognized Jesus as ‘Son of David’ which was one of the titles for the Messiah, and trusting that Jesus could heal his blindness. His making contact through his hearing and his speaking revealed that he had an inner sight. Even though he was blind, he saw Jesus with the eyes of faith. Even when he was rebuked by the crowd for confessing his faith out loud, he refused to be silenced. He had the courage to keep professing his faith, in spite of the hostility and scorn it brought upon him. This man’s courage faith and the quality of hearing, and speaking and seeing it gave rise to may have something to teach us when professing our faith publicly can invite scorn.

This man’s faith literally brought Jesus to a standstill, in spite of the fact that at this point in his ministry he was hurrying from Jericho to Jerusalem. The gospel says simply, ‘Jesus stopped.’ Jesus’ response to the heartfelt prayers of this man was in complete contrast to that of the people around him. Rather than telling him to keep quiet, Jesus told those around him to call him over. Jesus is portrayed as the champion of those not considered worthy enough to come near to God. Again we witness the extraordinary responsiveness of this man to Jesus’ presence, to the call of Jesus. When he heard that Jesus was calling him, he first of all threw off his cloak. His cloak, no doubt, served many purposes. He sheltered him from the weather; it was his bed; it was in a sense his home. Yet, he abandoned it, and having done so, he jumped up and went unerringly to Jesus in his blindness.

Nothing was going to hold him back from connecting with Jesus, not even his precious cloak. He speaks to all of us of our own need to free ourselves of the binds that stifle our faith and keep us from approaching the Lord. The question that Jesus asked him when they came face to face was not the kind of dismissive question that comes from annoyance at being interrupted, ‘What do you want?’ Rather, it was a very personal question ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ It is a question that we can all hear as addressed to each of us personally, and how we answer that question can reveal a great deal about who we are and what we value. In the passage in Mark’s gospel which immediately preceded this one, Jesus asked that same question of two of his own disciples, James and John, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ Their answer revealed a self-cantered ambition, ‘Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory?’ The blind man’s answer to Jesus’ question revealed a very different heart. Aware of his blindness, aware of his disability, he asked simply, ‘Master, let me see again.’ In answering his prayer, Jesus addressed him as a man of faith, ‘your faith has saved you.’ He was already seeing Jesus with the eyes of faith before he received back his physical sight. Once he received back his physical sight, we are told that he followed Jesus along the road. He immediately used his newly restored sight to walk after Jesus as a disciple up to the city of Jerusalem, where Jesus would be crucified. His faith had shaped his hearing and his speaking, and now it shaped the path he would take. In this Year of Faith that Pope Benedict has decreed we could do worse than take this man as a model of faith for the year. Like him we are blind beggars who need to keep on crying out to the Lord who passes by so that we can see him more clearly and follow him more nearly. [Martin Hogan]

 

Source: http://www.associationofcatholicpriests.ie/2015/10/25th-october-30th-sunday-ordinary-time/

 

God Bless
Nathan

Willingness to Serve

The theme of the willing servant matches the missionary ideal perfectly. The ideal missionary is so devoted to the good of the people whom s/he is sent to serve that they plan both their activities and their life-style to match the real needs of those people. There is a huge effort of adaptation and enculturation involved, so that the Gospel can integrate into the lives of the local people. This goes well beyond the initial need to learn the local language, and the most effective symbols to use, so that the message of Jesus can be understood and loved.

In our world, where most of the celebrities highlighted in the media seem motivated by self-interest and self-assertion Jesus’ call to total service seems unrealistic, and, one might think, unlikely to succeed. But today’s Gospel offers the ideal of dedication to the service of others as fundamental to Christian discipleship. Jesus came “not to be served, but to serve” and this example must always be a guiding light for his followers. He went about doing good (cf. Acts 10:38), bringing justice, healing, forgiveness and kindness into people’s lives. This is why those who believe in him are challenged to give themselves, their talents and their time, to the service of others without seeking any other reward than knowing that this is supremely worthwhile. The acted parable of the foot-washing at the Last Supper gives out the same message.

In practice what can we learn from our Lord’s life and actions? He clearly said that he came to do the Father’s will, and this thought stayed with him, even when it led to suffering and a cruel death. He was always about the Father’s business, and made it his business. This prompts us too, with an active sense of duty, and a personal dedication to God’s will for us. Normally, we discover our duty and God’s will for us, not in world-changing plans or in heroic ideals but in the ordinary tasks of each day. At home or in the office, or the school or other workplace, or wherever the activity of the moment calls us, we try to be aware of duty and a sense of dedication. Whenever we work in a slipshod manner, of fail to offer the needed helping hand, we fall below our personal call to service. What a change it would make, if there was a widespread return to this spirit, with regard to people’s daily work. We need to be reminded that in rendering to others the service of a job well done we are imitating the serving Christ and being his fellow-workers in building up the kingdom of God on earth.

It is tempting to be selfish with our time and energy. There are so many plausible excuses for excluding ourselves from the work that needs to be done. How easy to join the many who just live for themselves and let society fend for itself. But today’s Scripture calls us to examine our conscience, and to face the question, “What can I do for my community, rather than what can my community do for me?” It is one of the most basic values we have to keep on learning throughout our lives. The approach of James and John, in today’s Gospel, is not unlike the way many of us come to God. We approach him in prayer with the greatest fervour, whenever we want something for ourselves. Jesus responds to their request with a request of his own, thereby showing that what he wants for us must take priority over what we want for ourselves. The only request worth making is that which he taught us to make, “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Mt 6:10.) His will, as expressed in today’s Gospel, is that we should share in his cup and in his baptism, that cup which he was to ask the Father to take from him (Mk 14:36), and that baptism of fire which he knew he had to undergo. His death on the cross was but the final expression of that total service which characterised the whole of his life. Everyday he died to himself, because he lived “not to be served, but to serve.” His life was a daily emptying of self (Phil 2:7), a self-emptying which was only complete when he gave his last breath on the cross The complete missionary!

 

Source: http://www.associationofcatholicpriests.ie/2015/10/18th-october-29th-sunday-mission-sunday/

 

God Bless
Nathan

Divinity of Christ

Evidence for the Divinity of Jesus Christ in the Early Church Fathers
complied by Marcellino D’Ambrosio, Ph.D.

 

The DaVinci Code repeats the old claim, by the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Others, that no one believed in the Divinity of Jesus Christ in the early Church, but that this idea was invented and promulgated by the emperor Constantine who gained control of the Roman Empire in 312 AD.  This historical claim in absolute nonsense.  The following texts from Christian writers who lived between New Testament times and the reign of Constantine make abundantly clear that belief in Christ's divinity and equality with God the Father is an indisputable part of the Christian tradition from the beginning.  These quotes demonstrating belief in Jesus' divine as well as human nature are by no means exhaustive – they are just a very limited selection.  Most or all of the direct quotes below come from the collection edited by Cyril Richardson entitled Early Christian Fathers (NY: Macmillan, 1970), abbreviated here as ECF.

A.Ignatius of Antioch, on the Divinity of Christ, calls Jesus God 16x in 7 letters (ca. 110 AD)

 

1. “Jesus Christ our God” Eph inscr, Eph 15:3, Eph 18:2, Tral 7, Ro inscr 2x, Ro 3:3, Smyr 10:1.

2. He speaks of Christ’s blood as “God's blood” Eph 1:1

3.  He calls Jesus “God incarnate” Eph 7:2

4.  In Jesus “God was revealing himself as a man”  Eph 19:3

 

B. Epistle to Diognetus (ca. 125 AD) speaking of God the Father, he says:

1. Diognetus 7:2  "he sent the Designer and Maker of the universe himself, by whom he created the heavens and confined the sea within its own bounds" (ca. 125 AD)

2. Diognetus 7:4 “He sent him as God; he sent him as man to men."

 

C. Saint Justin Martyr on the Divinity of Christ (c. 155 AD)

1.   says that Christians adore and worship the Son as well as the Father.  1st Apology 6.

2.  says Christ, the Word incarnate, is divine 1 Apol 10 & 63

 

D. Irenaeus on Christ's Divinity (ca. 185) in his work Adversus Haereses (Against Heresies)

 

1. Of Jesus he says "He is the holy Lord, the Wonderful, the Counselor, the Beautiful in appearance, and the Mighty God, coming on the clouds as the Judge of all men; --all these things did the Scriptures prophesy of Him."  AH III.19.2 (Ante Nicene Fathers 1: 449).

2. "He, therefore who was known, was not a different being from Him who declared, 'No man knoweth the Father,' but one and the same, the Father making all things subject to Him; while He received testimony from all that He was very [true] man, and that He was very [true] God, from the Father, from the Spirit, from angels, from the creation itself, from men, from apostate spirits and demons, from the enemy, and last of all, from death itself."  AH, IV, 6,7 (ANF, 469).

Source:   https://www.crossroadsinitiative.com

 

God Bless
Nathan

Hard Truths

Truths that are hard to hear

We can all struggle at times to listen to someone if what they say arouses painful emotions in us. They might be trying to tell us something about ourselves that we find difficult to hear. That very human tendency is reflected in the disciples in this morning’s gospel. Jesus had something very important to say about what was about to happen to him. In the words of the gospel, he was telling them that he would find himself in the hands of others, who would put him to death. This was something that the disciples found very hard to hear and were not able to take on board. As the gospel says, ‘they did not understand what he said and they were afraid to ask him.’ Already in Mark’s gospel Jesus told them what was likely to happen to him. They were no more open to hearing it the second time than they were the first. They did not understand it and they were reluctant to question him because they were afraid they might not be able to live with the answers he would give them. In some ways that is a very human reaction. We often find ourselves not willing to ask questions because we suspect that we would struggle to live with the answers to our questions.

Yet, in our heart of hearts, we often recognize that there are certain realities we have to face, even if they are painful to face. There are certain illusions we may have to let go of, even if we have come to cherish them. In the second part of this morning’s gospel Jesus worked to disillusion his disciples, in that good sense. He needed to prise them away from the illusions of greatest that they harboured. They seemed to have thought that being part of Jesus’ circle would bring them privilege and status. No sooner had Jesus spoken of himself as someone who would end up as one of the least than the disciples began to argue among themselves as to which of them was the greatest. They wanted power and, it seems, that they wanted power for its own sake. This is the kind of self-centred ambition that James talks about in the second reading when he says, ‘you have an ambition that you cannot satisfy, so you fight to get your way by force.’ In place of that very worldly ambition, Jesus places before his disciples a very different kind of ambition, an ambition that has the quality of what James in that reading refers to as ‘the wisdom that comes down from above.’ This is God’s ambition for their lives and for all our lives. It is the ambition to serve, as Jesus says in the gospel, ‘those who want to be first must make themselves last of all and servant of all.’ This ambition to serve, again in the words of James in that second reading, is something that ‘makes for peace and is kindly and considerate; it is full of compassion and shows itself by doing good.’

Jesus implies that this is to be our primary ambition as his followers. All our other ambitions have to be subservient to that God-inspired ambition. In his teaching of his disciples and of us all, Jesus elaborates on his teaching by performing a very significant action. He takes a little child and sets the child in front of his disciples, puts his arms around the child and declares that whoever welcomes one such child, welcomes him and not only him but God the Father who sent him. Jesus was saying by that action that the ambition to serve must give priority to the most vulnerable members of society, symbolized by the child who is completely dependent on adults for his or her well being. Our ambition is to serve those who, for one reason or another, are not in a position to serve themselves. Jesus goes, assuring his disciples and us that in serving the most vulnerable we are in fact serving him. In the presence of the disciples who seemed consumed with an ambition for power for its own sake Jesus identifies himself with the powerless, those who are most dependent on our care. Over against the ambition of the disciples to serve themselves, Jesus puts the ambition to serve him as he comes to us in and through the weakest members of society. In our gospel Jesus is putting before us what his family of disciples, what the church, is really about. [Martin Hogan]

http://www.associationofcatholicpriests.ie/2015/09/20th-september-25th-sunday-ordinary-time/

 

God Bless
Nathan

Faith Without Works

So what good is it if one has faith but has no works?  Now, we can all agree that faith is an indispensable ingredient to attain salvation, to be saved, but is faith alone for salvation the teaching of Scripture and the Church?

Today’s second reading gives us a strong clue of the answer to that question.  James says that “faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead.” Seems pretty clear but then you’ll have those who tell you that one can have a dead faith or a living faith and because they have at least one type of faith then they are ‘saved’.

Can a dead faith save you?  Some say yes because they have believe that one is saved through faith alone.  And yet we find Scripture teaching very different things.  In the same chapter of James, just a few lines following todays passage we see that James also emphatically states that “..as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so faith apart from works is dead.”  We see here that James has made the ‘body’ analogous to ‘faith’ and ‘the spirit’ analogous to ‘works’.  Now how useful or life inducing is it if the body is without the spirit?  In the same way, faith, if it has no works is useless, that is, lifeless.

Lifeless…  Kinda points to not saved right?  But let’s see what Jesus has to say on ones works and how it relates to salvation.  Jesus teaches throughout the Gospels that one is judged by ones works.  In the story about Judgement Day in Matthew 25, we see Jesus separates the sheep from the goats on the simple criteria of whether one has ‘clothed the naked’, ‘fed the hungry’ and gave drank ‘the to the thirsty’, and so forth.  Something that one DOES.  If one does NOT do those things that the Father Wills us to do then we are sent to eternal punishment (Mat 25:46).

The Catholic website (www.catholic.com) puts it succinctly when it states that:

The Church teaches that it's God's grace from beginning to end which justifies, sanctifies, and saves us. As Paul explains in Philippians 2:13, "God is the one, who, for his good purpose, works in you both to desire and to work."

Notice that Paul's words presuppose that the faithful Christian is not just desiring to be righteous, but is actively working toward it. This is the second half of the justification equation, and Protestants either miss or ignore it. (http://www.catholic.com/quickquestions/why-does-the-church-teach-that-works-can-obtain-salvation)

 

And finally, if one tries to convince you that one is saved by faith alone just point out James 2:24 which states directly that “…a man is justified [ie saved] by works and not by faith alone.”

 

God Bless
Nathan

Reflections on Sept 9, 2015 readings

The Gospel Reading for this Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time in Cycle B comes from Mark 7:31-37, and concerns the event that took place in the district of Decapolis. The text tells us that the people brought a man who was deaf and also had a speech impediment to Jesus, and begged Him to lay his hand on him. We then read that [Jesus] “took him off by himself away from the crowd. He put his finger into the man’s ears and, spitting, touched his tongue; then he looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him, “Ephphatha!”– that is, “Be opened!” — And immediately the man’s ears were opened, his speech impediment was removed, and he spoke plainly. He ordered them not to tell anyone. But the more he ordered them not to, the more they proclaimed it. They were exceedingly astonished and they said, “He has done all things well. He makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”

There’s nothing I hated worse as a kid than wet kisses from my aunts, or when my mother would use her own spit as a cleaning agent or cosmetic for my face. UGH! I still get grossed out thinking about it today. I’m not bothered by my own excess saliva, but other people’s spit on me is downright disgusting! In fact, the Hebrew Bible not only informs us that spit from a person afflicted with genital excretions is unclean (Cf. Lev. 15:8), but that spitting on someone is considered to be an insult (Cf. Num. 12:14; Dt. 25:9):

Leviticus 15:8 – If the man with the discharge spits on a clean person, the latter shall wash his garments, bathe in water, and be unclean until evening.

Numbers 12:14 – But the LORD answered Moses: Suppose her father had spit in her face, would she not bear her shame for seven days? Let her be confined outside the camp for seven days; afterwards she may be brought back.

Deuteronomy 25:9 – Thereupon the elders of his city shall summon him and speak to him. If he persists in saying, “I do not want to marry her, his sister-in-law, in the presence of the elders, shall go up to him and strip his sandal from his foot and spit in his face, declaring, “This is how one should be treated who will not build up his brother’s family!”

Spitting, as an intentional insult, still has a place in Judaism today. We find it in Chapter 33 of the Shulchan Aruch, known in English as the Code of Jewish Law, is a written manual of halacha (Jewish law), authored and published by Rabbi Yosef Karo in the 16^th century:

No. 4: A person should always remember that, to smell food, you should spit ascended saliva, rather than swallow it, because if he had swallowed, may expose themselves to danger, Gd forbid.”

We also find spitting included as part of the Aleinu Prayer, which concludes every service for Chabad Jews. They spit immediately after the first stanza that ends “For they worship vanity and emptiness” (Hebrew: שֶׁהֵם מִשְׁתַּחֲוִים לְהֶבֶל וָרִיק). There is also the Jewish custom to spit three times in reaction to something especially good or evil, by either literally spitting or figuratively by saying “pooh, pooh, pooh.”

So how do we understand Jesus using His own spit as a healing agent in the light that spitting on someone is an insult? The first thing point out is that there are three spitting-miracles narratives in the Gospels (two in Mark 7:31-37 and 8:22-26 and one in John 9:1-41), and the fact that the Gospel of John accounts for one of those events is very important. Theologians like to pay close attention to the Gospel of John because it was written a generation after Matthew, Mark, and Luke. That being the case, we find that the stories contained in John informs us about what particular events in Jesus’ life that the more mature Christian communities found to be most meaningful. It’s comparable to the memories I would share about my father to my daughters, versus the stories that my daughters would tell about my father a few decades after my death. The stories they tell about him would be the ones that they heard from me that had the most impact on their life, or the stories they found had the most significant meaning. Therefore, because John includes a spittle-miracle, we know that this is a narrative that has rich theological meaning.

I believe that the more Scripturally consistent way to understand the spittle-miracles would be in same way that we understand Jesus doing things on the Sabbath that were considered to be against the law, or how we understand His teachings to correct the Mosaic Law (e.g. on divorce). Jesus did these things to not only to establish His authority, but to also demonstrate His authority, which often came by the way of giving teachable paradoxes. Jesus’ teaching method can be summed up in this way: What you think is real, is NOT actually real, and what you think is true, is actually NOT true. And the spittle-miracles fit right into that didactic construct. Essentially Jesus was saying, ‘So, you think spit is an insult – you think spit is unclean? Well, let me show you what spit was capable of from the beginning – before sin came into the world.

I think the best way to take this teaching and apply it to our daily lives is not going out and spitting on people with cancer and impaired vision, but, rather, by the way of another paradoxical saying; that, who you are is not who God is drawing you into being, and who you are is exactly who you will be. Meaning that we ought not understand this teaching through the one who spat, but, rather, by the one who was spat upon. In the way we will see that what Jesus is saying here is that all that I AM and all that I HAVE is what you are and will be, and do have and will have, if you would just faithfully live with your eyes fixated on my Father through Me.

 

Adapted from: http://www.davidlgray.info/blog/2012/09/jesus-spit-miracles/

 

God Bless
Nathan

Scripture and Tradition

The online dictionary defines the word tradition to be “the handing down of statements, beliefs, legends, customs, information, etc., from generation to generation.”

 

The Sacred Scriptures, the Old and New Testament, are a kind of tradition, a tradition handed down to us.  The apostles who were taught by Jesus and whose followers wrote down what they learned of the apostles stories and recollections that we now call the New Testament writings put these writings together with the Old Testament writings in one collection of books which we now call our Bible, where the word ‘Bible’ originates from the Greek ‘biblio’, which means ‘book’.

 

The authors of these NT books ‘handed down’ these letters, and the information contained in them, to others who would benefit from reading them and they, in turn, copied them and handed it to others.  This handing down is a form of tradition.  Since we believe that these writings came to us through the divine inspiration of the authors by God Himself through the guiding of the Holy Spirit, and protected from corruption in its copying, we call these writings ‘Sacred Scripture.’

 

The difference between ‘small-t’ tradition and ‘capital-T’ tradition is its origin.  If a tradition, that is, a belief, a custom or information, is known to have originated from Jesus Christ or the apostles while being inspired by the Holy Spirit to teach the truth then this tradition is properly called Sacred Tradition, or simply ‘capital-T’ Tradition and if it doesn’t originate from Jesus or the apostles in the same way, then it’s a small-t tradition.  For example, the concept of three persons in one God, the Trinity is a capital-t Tradition while the tradition of crossing ourselves with Holy Water as we enter a church as a small-t tradition.  The first is revealed by God and therefore the Truth, the other is simply a pious thing to do.

 

‘T’radition is the churches lived meaning of those texts.  If we don’t have access to the meaning of those texts is when we come up all sorts of errant or even abhorrent theologies.  Theologies which are inconsistent with what the Apostles received such as the Arian heresy where Jesus is believed to be human only and not divine.  Or even the belief in a symbolic only presence in the Eucharist as opposed to a True Presence.  In defending their belief in the human nature only of Christ and the symbolic presence only in the Eucharist, both groups defend their position using the text of the Scriptures and yet they were/are both wrong because they do not take into account the continuing understanding of those texts by those Christians through history.

 

 

WAIT A MINUTE….

 

Didn’t Jesus condemn all traditions of men?  He seems to be very clear when He pronounces in Matt 15:6 “So, for the sake of your tradition, you have made void the word of God.” or in Mark 7:13 “Making void the word of God by your own tradition, which you have given forth.”

 

To reject all traditions because of these verses demonstrate a severe lack of understanding.  Jesus isn’t rejecting all traditions.  He’s rejecting any tradition that voids the Word of God; traditions of the kind are often called ‘traditions of men’ because they do not originate from God but from man.  With this in mind we can easily see that is what Jesus was condemning.  He was condemning any tradition that make “void the word of God”.

 

Therefore some traditions are OK but some are not.  So how can we figure out which ones to keep and which ones to reject, or more precisely, are there any traditions that we ought to reject as faithful followers of Jesus? Many will tell you that if a tradition does not line up with Scripture then it is man-made and to be avoided.  Sounds reasonable right?  Reasonable, maybe, but to do this means that we are rejecting beyond what Jesus was telling us to reject.  Jesus told us to reject the traditions of men since He was talking about those traditions that made void the word of God.  Just because a tradition is not found in Scripture doesn’t mean that it voids the Word of God.  It could simply mean that this tradition was never explicitly written down in Scripture.  Nowhere in Scripture will you find that all that’s needed for right-Christian living is to be found in Scripture.  Equally absent will you find everything that was taught by Jesus and the apostles.  The apostle John tells us that many things were taught by Jesus in His post-Resurrection appearances that were not written down (John 21:25).

 

As a matter of fact, we do find in Scripture the direct command to hold on to the traditions handed to us by the original followers of Christ in verse 15 of Paul’s second letter to the Thessalonians.  Paul tells us to “stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, whether by word of mouth or by letter.”  Not only does Paul direct us to “hold on to the traditions” taught by him and the other elders but he also defines what was written to be a form of tradition as well.  What was taught orally and what was taught through their writings were both defined as “traditions”.  Therefore what was taught by the apostles, either through word of mouth or through inspired writings was to be accepted and believed.

 

Now, I guess the question will have to come up.  How are we to know if what we call Sacred Tradition truly does originate with the apostles and is not a human invention inserted decades or even centuries later?  Many will tell you to go to the Scriptures.  But then we are assuming that the Scriptures are inspired in the first place.  Remember that the Scriptures are a form of tradition as well.  We are trying to determine if any specific tradition came to us from God directly or through the apostles.  We are obliged to accept and agree with those that do originate from God directly or through the apostles, but no such obligation exists for those traditions that do not.

 

For a concrete example, let’s look at the Scriptures a little more closely.  If the Scriptures are a form of capital-t Tradition then how did we as Christians come up with the collection of books in our Bible as thee collection of writings to accept as ‘God-breathed’, or inspired?  Answering this question will also help make clear why the doctrine of Sola-Scriptura cannot be true.

 

At the turn of the third century many considered early writings to be ‘God-breathed’ that today are not in our Bible while others considered certain writings that are in our Bible today were rejected at the time.  The confusion needed to be resolved and so a council was convened to determine which books were inspired and which were not.  This ‘canon’ was agreed upon by a local council at Hippo and Carthage (393 and 397 AD) and ratified by the Pope in c. 400 AD.  Once this was done there were no more disputes on the canon of the books inspired by God.  Therefore, all those who agree and accept the books of the NT of our Bible, accept the authority of the Church to infallibly determine this list of inspired writings, whether they know it or not.

 

And so we find that the inspired writings found their way in our Bible through the Church by ordained men, bishops of the Catholic Church.  To accept the authority of the Scriptures is to accept the authority of the Catholic Church.  This means that the doctrine invented by men in the early 1500’s that Scripture Alone is authoritative is self-defeating because to believe that the Scriptures are authoritative is to accept that the Church is also authoritative since they infallibly discerned which books were Scripture.  Both Scripture AND the Church are authoritative therefore Scripture is not alone, which is what Sola means in Sola Scriptura, Scripture Alone.

 

God Bless

Nathan