“So how can any church today use only the Bible -[OT/NT] as its only source of faith, when the early Church didn`t have the written NT for 7 years?
According to the former, the latter would not qualify as a legitimate church today coz it didn`t have nor relied on the written NT when it started.
haha!”
I don’t think you understand my point.
If my church today had the twelve apostles running around, directly anointed by God, and sending epistles out with directions about how things are and what to believe and do, that would be fine.
Because the apostles had a finite lifespan, they wrote. Their words are still with us as the New Testament.
So, the first 5-7 years, I’d have listened to the apostles, and of course all the Old Testament.
After the apostles were gone, like now, I’d have their writings to rely upon.
Found a germane quote by preacher Charles Spurgeon, well loved and respected Baptist of the 1800s. He says things ever so much better than I do:
“Is it not written, “The Lord knoweth the thoughts of man, that they are vanity”? To liken our thoughts to the great thoughts of God, would be a gross absurdity. Would you bring your candle to show the sun? Your nothingness to replenish the eternal all? It is better to be silent before the Lord, than to dream of supplementing what he has spoken. The Word of the Lord is to the conceptions of men as a garden to a wilderness. Keep within the covers of the sacred book, and you are in the land which floweth with milk and honey; why seek to add to it the desert sands?”