please read my post #439 in the great cities Rome thread, i don’t know how to copy and paste! ( maybe someone can do that for me )
If no one is paying attention to your posts there might be a reason.
everyone agrees that no one knows who wrote hebrews. why do you accept it as Scripture? no, not because reading it you can tell, that is impossible and you are not infallible. and not because another book of the bible says hebrews is canonical, because there isn’t one. no, the only truthful and historical answer is ( and it’s the same answer for all 27 books of the NT ) because the Catholic Church has received it by Sacred Tradition and therefore we know it must be true.
that’s a pretty bold statement, how do we KNOW it’s true, because Jesus promised the Holy Spirit would lead the Church into all truth. Many believe God protected the Scriptures for 2,000 and He has, but the instrument was His Body the Church. St Augustine stated that without the authority of the Church, he would not believe in Jesus. Many can not distinguish between man made tradition ( choosing 12/25 to celebrate Christmas ) and Sacred Tradition received from the Apostles ( infant baptism for example ) some will ask, how do we know a tradition is Sacred and Apostolic - the same way the Church knew which books of the Bible were canonical or not, was the Tradition practiced in every local church where an Apostle preached?
for example, infant baptism. all the local churches ( which together formed the Catholic Church ) were taught infant baptism by the Apostles and the Church continues to practice to this day. All the Church Fathers testify to this and there was no controversy in the early Church from other groups claiming it was a heresy. go ahead, search Church History and tell me when the Baptist Church of Antioch opposed infant baptism. you can’t, because this group was not around until the 16th century. tell me who started infant baptism if not the Apostles? what year? what groups said this is heresy? you can’t. when the Apostle
Thomas preached and converted gentiles to Christ, did the converts accept his oral teaching or did they wait for a letter from Paul or Peter? it was this Catholic Faith, deposited by the Apostles and guarded by the Holy Spirit, that was the only authority on earth that could absolutely declare as true these 27 books were Scripture and none more or less. this authority, received directly from Jesus, does not exist in any other group claiming to be the Church.
some who claim to follow the Bible only ( sola scriptura ) deny basic doctrines taught in Scripture, but confirmed by Sacred Tradition. i’ll name two: the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist and baptismal regeneration. these doctrines are clearly taught in Scripture, were believed by the Church for 2,000, yet some who claim to follow the Bible, deny these doctrines. forget about Mary, praying to saints, etc. if you don’t have these two doctrines correct, how can you claim to be a Christian.
do you know there isn’t any church you would have been able to join before the 16th century then? some claim, false doctrine was being brought in even in Paul’s time. correct, but the true Church was always there to combat it!! the false teaching never became Church doctrine because it wasn’t Catholic. deep down, the reason the Church gets so many people attacking it and misrepresenting it’s beliefs ( worshipping Mary, worshipping statutes, works based salvation, etc etc ) is deep down, a lot of people know what i am saying is true! i can’t imagine having to attack st ignatius, st augustine, st polycarp and all the other Church Fathers in order for my own interpretation of Scripture to be true.
i can’t imagine having to call other Christians from the first 16 centuries pagans and idolaters!! let God be true and every man a liar! i can’t imagine reading Church history, Bible history and not being able to find any group who hold doctrines that i do. that is a LDS belief, not a Christian one. so to wrap up, i thank the two individuals who tried to answer my question, i beleive they are sincere truth seeking people. the purpose of the question was to make those people who think the 27 book NT fell out of the sky or the Holy Spirit handed it to some 16th century reformers, think again!!
then maybe the next time you open the Bible, say a prayer thanking God for giving us the Catholic Church so we can know for sure what books are canonical and for faithfully hand copying these very same books, from the original books all the way down to the invention of the printing press. many monks devoted their life to just copying God’s Word!
[Chapter Five] Great Cities of the Bible: Rome-The Light Extinguished
January 13, 2011 7:14:03 PM EST · 439 of 439
one Lord one faith one baptism to GiovannaNicoletta