This is the response I get from many of my protestant friends that find out I am Catholic. These are the very people with whom over the past 7 years I've studied scripture, sang praise music, and evangilized along side. It's hard to believe that a faithful "bible believing Christian" like me could become a "Papist" or join that "unbiblical romish." I must say, that rarely do those faithful in other Christian traditions ever use this kind of demeaning language, it usually comes from anti-Catholic propaganda usually trying to "save" Catholics, but I do take my fare share of "abuse." And a lot of this abuse begins with quotes from scripture, this is something I like to start with.
Now, I want to state that I do not judge AT ALL anyone's reactions to my conversion. I honestly believe that out of their love for Christ, Sacred Scripture, and me they do not agree or approve of my conversion, not because of any other reason (I hope).
I often find myself in many discussions about the Church (granted, I start a few here and there). And, as would and should be expected, I get scripture thrown at me that "proves" the Catholic Church is wrong about this, or confused about that, or unaware of this verse or that one. Now, I will now make this bold statement - NO SCRIPTURE IS CONTRADICTORY TO THE TEACHINGS OF THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH AND NO TEACHING OF THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH IS CONTRADICTORY TO SCRIPTURE. But, I do not want to discuss the finer points that many people wish to jump on like:
- The Papacy
- Mary
- Indulgences
- Purgatory
- Confession/Penance
- Statues, Icons, etc.
- and all the other misunderstood teachings of God through His Church
Yes, I do think these need to be discussed. Scripture does teach all these things, although it may not use the same phraseology as we do (remember, the words trinity, incarnation, and the sinners prayer are not used in the Bible, but the teachings are). I want to talk about why you are quoting that book as THE WORD OF GOD. Specifically the New Testament books, all 27 of them.
I am told that the Catholic Church uses traditions of men and not of God because it believes in the Traditions of the Church. I would have to say that it teaches the truths of God through man. And the fact of the matter is, protestants believe in the traditions taught by the men of the Catholic Church too. Yes, the protestants follow the traditions of man. Why? Because protestants often use the Bible as the Word of God to refute traditions of man, but obviously they don't see it, or are unaware of the reality that the only reason we know that those 27 books are the canon of Christian scripture is because the Catholic Church said so! But don't be to frightened of the word "tradition." We must follow the traditions of the apostles who were men;
- "So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter" (2 Thess. 2:15).
- "Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is living in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us" (2 Thess. 3:6).
Some traditions are GOOD and NECESSARY. My main point here, is that there is one that we all agree on: Scripture.
Lets think about it - Christ didn't write anything, the books of the NT were in fact written between the years 50-100AD. The King James Bible didn't fall out of the sky. The New Testament wasn't written on tablets on top of a mountain by God. The messages didn't appear as writing in the sky.
The New Testament letters and gospels were written by God through the Catholic Church along side many writings from very godly men, but not all the writings were considered Canon. Many writings we still have come from the same set of teaching bishops and priests like Peter and Paul, but although the dates of writing are close, they're not in the bible. Why? Because the Catholic Church said no, and defined the books we know now as Scripture of the New Covenant Church. When did this definition happen? Many were disputed like Revelation and the Epistle of Clement. But we need to know that many writings of the bible were not considered scripture as soon as they were written, but this was a process that the Holy Spirit led through His Church to give us the bible. Scripture was disputed for almost 400 years before we see real defining and unification of thought. And who did this defining? The Holy Spirit through the Catholic Church led by the successors to St. Peter (the Popes). This also brings up an interesting question - If the bible is the sole and final authority on issues of faith and morals, what authority did Christians look towards during the period we hear about in Acts? That discussion I think is for another day.
"So what" you may say. "Maybe they got it right then, but they don't have it right now." So why do I put so much faith in this Church? Well, lets go to that Catholic book written and compiled by the Catholic Church..the bible:
"And I say to thee. Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." (Matthew 16:18)
Skip the part where Christ is establishing Peter as the first Pope as prophesied in Isaiah 22:22 (see Peter), but look at the words "I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." Christ says He will build His Church, not any man, not a pastor, not a pope, not Luther, but He will - God will. And He promises the gates of hell will not prevail. Why did He say that? Because He knew that hell would try! But He said they will NOT prevail. So the Church founded by Christ must still be here because Christ would build it and preserve it. This Church is not a simply the union of all who profess Christ as Lord, we see in Matt 18:15-17 that the Church is a physical institution that we can take a brother to when he has sinned against us. In fact, what do we as Christians look to as the pillar and foundation of truth? The Bible? Well....no! The Church! 1 Tim 3:15 says that the Church is "the pillar and foundation of truth." Some translations say bulwark instead of foundation. A bulwark is something that fortifies or protects. That's a pretty serious role that the Church plays in regards to what truth is. Therefore, we can trust that the bible is the word of God because the Church led by the Holy Spirit said so. All Christians must accept this particular tradition of the Church. This is a tradition handed down through the Church, that the 27 books we know as the NT were infallibly "set" by men. So many times we hear that no man can be infallible (please note infallible does NOT mean sinless), but the problem is, any bible believing Christian MUST believe that men have spoken infallibly. Its hard to swallow when you say it, but lets look at examples that we all believe:
- Scripture - written by MEN. Yes the Holy Spirit is the ultimate Author, and He enabled these men to write infallibly.
- The Canon - well, if we think about it, we can't truly have our authority in the "bible alone," because we wouldn't have the bible. There's no list of what is and is not scripture in scripture. So who says what's in and what's out? The Church infallibly says so.
- The trinity, the Sabbath, the incarnation, the dual natures of Christ (fully God and fully man). These doctrines we can deduce from scripture, but they aren't exactly spelled out the way we know them now. "Well those are obvious!" you may say. Are they? We take for granted the grate pains the Church has gone through fighting heresies and other deluded definitions of our Holy Faith. These doctrines were often disputed by many using scripture (some try to now with things like the trinity and the Sabbath), but when they were defined by the Church they became dogma and were no longer "up for grabs." We feel sure of them now, but many were led astray with heresies regarding these doctrines, but we can trust them because God leads His Church in all truth. We stick with the apostles and their successors because of what Christ says in Luke 10:16. Christ instructed the Church to preach everything He taught (Matt. 28:19–20) and promised the protection of the Holy Spirit to "guide you into all the truth" (John 16:13). And some of the things He taught or did we can assume are not in scripture because at the end of the Gospel of John we hear "But there are also many other things which Jesus did," he goes on to say if he (John) had written everything about Christ "I suppose the world itself could not contain the books.."
This is not to say that our conversations and friendly debates should not include scripture, we know that scripture is God breathed and useful for refutation (2 Timothy 3:16-17). But lets make sure we remember why we CAN go to this book that soars above all other books - the authority given by the Author to His Holy Church. Without this particular tradition of men, we would not be able to have a conversation with this Holy Book.
So now that we have that out of the way, lets talk about that Scripture...
Forget the chicken and the egg....which came first, the Church or the Bible?
For further reading about traditions - Scripture_and_Tradition
