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Fantasy. He taught mostly to the Apostles. To others He spoke in parables.

So only the apostles had the Kingdom of God within? Only the apostles could seek first the Kingdom of God and all else would be added to them?

Jesus spoke in parables by His compassion. Once knowledge is known, it is the responsibility of the knower to exact it. Many were not ready, but many were, hence "For him with ears let him hear."

The apostles were ready, too. So what?

"Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit" [Mat 28:19, NAB]

You already quoted that passage and I told you what it meant. A nation is a corporate entity, artificial, that is, composed of its individual members. The is hard material physical reality like the law of gravity.

You can't access a "nation" as a person. The closest you can come is access to the leadership, the government and the corruption that always therein, and the leadership cannot commit a spiritual pathway for the citizens of that nation. This is what America is founded on. You're American, right?

You must access each individual in the nation. You are dealing with a figure of speech, poetic imagery, which the Bible is full of.

I have a hard time believing you are using these mediocre arguments to support a human run organization having spiritual sovereignty of all the people in the world and a gatekeeper to God Almighty Himself.

If Christ wanted everyone to read the Bible and interpret it as they please He would have made that happen. Instead, He clearly chose not to, but to commission His Apostles to teach others. It was not a Jewish practice to read the Bible and, being a pious Jew, Jesus would have never said otherwise.

He did make that happen. I can, right now, kneel and pray to God and He will meet my need, unless it is selfish. I do and He does. I have endless testimony over the course of my life. I am not Catholic.

So what if he commissioned people to teach others? His mission was to spread the Gospel. You are in the silly position of claiming only those who He chose to spread it have the authority to send a person to Heaven or to Hell.

As for "sola scriptura" vs Tradition. We know what we read is from those ancient times. How do we know any oral "Tradition" was really preached? It wasn't written, because it was oral. Because the Catholic church says so, to its benefit and increase?

I don't think so. God condemns fools.

Sola scriptura is simply not scriptural.

Neither is "Tradition". Oh, the word "tradition" may be used in the scriptures, but who knows what it meant? The word "scriptures" is used, too, and references to using them to teach. We know what that means.

Hardly. The only breaking is in the Protestant world where the never-ending search for the "true church" results in ever-increasing "denominations" (somewhere in the neighborhood of 30-plus thousand known ones to this date).

So what if there 200,000?

When an individual, thought his own agency, can reach salvation and eternal life, by seeking the Kingdom, which is within each individual, any church that claims sovereignty over a person's soul, Catholic or Protestant, is broken.

Not in the Protestant world.

Yes, in the Protestant world. All that is specifically needful is agreed upon, unless it be some Jim Jones sect. As for individually enacted techniques, well, every person is different, like every blade of grass. God knows what is in the heart.

I will agree with you that some sects are drifting toward the heretical fringe, but, then, the Catholic church is awash is sin and sodomy.

No man has authority to save himself. You do have options. But salvation comes only from God.

Salvation indeed comes from God. Not any church. The Kingdom of God is within, and there you seek it. It is not inside a church, Catholic or Protestant. The scriptures are clear.

LOL

So you can't refute what I said? Do you understand what I said.

Yes, that's obvious, where "thinking man" is the final arbiter of what is God's and what is not, by virtue of reason. Yup, mankind will figure everything out, even God. No lack of pride and arrogance there in our "supreme" ability to understand and know everything and all by creating rationalism as a form of religion.

Acts 17:2 And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures

Acts 18:4 And he reasoned in the synagogue every sabbath, and persuaded the Jews and the Greeks.

Acts 18:19 And he came to Ephesus, and left them there: but he himself entered into the synagogue, and reasoned with the Jews.

Acts 24:25 And as he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled, and answered, Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee.

Jesus was all the time reasoning with the scribes and Pharisees over scripture.

God gave man a mind and reason. He meant us to use it.

Sometimes. IN the case of making all nations the disciples of Christ, it is crystal clear indeed. I wish you would see it too.

The scripture that teach individuals to have faith (only an individual can do that) seek the Kingdom (only an individual can do that) and other things only an individual can do to reach salvation, the scripture are crystal clear. Only in those which may be open to interpretation can the church gain foothold, but doing so, it drifts outside the crystal clear communication of the the vast majority of the scriptures (scriptural crisis).

The difference is that you are invested in the Catholic church, linked through the natural human being's desire to feel superiority and the fear of eternal damnation if not invested in the church. You cannot hear what I say. But, perhaps others, not so programed and conditioned, will.

I find it interesting that church plays upon the specific negative aspects of our sinful natures to project itself to gain power.

So only the apostles had the Kingdom of God within? Only the apostles could seek first the Kingdom of God and all else would be added to them?

Christ designated only a handful of individuals and gave them the powers to bind and loose (the "keys"), and they, through the Holy Spirit, in turn to those they designated to succeed them.

The New Testament is clear on that, as it is clear that the Church, left in the hands of Christ's hand-picked Apostles, established hierarchy.

The Faith celebrated in the Apostolic Church which was established by Christ in Person, was and is a continuation of one and the same faith handed down to the Patriarchs onward, and the liturgical makeup of the service (liturgy) is a continuation of the Jewish liturgical tradition.

As such, the Church never understood the service to be anything but that done by designated priests in a manner of offering a sacrifice, and not by self-styled bible-thumping "ministers."

Likewise, the Torah was not something everyone could just read and make up his or her own religion out of. That concept of scriptural interpretation by the priestly class was carried over into the Church of the New Covenant seamlessly.

Therefore all this is not some "invention" of the Catholic church, but a continuation of Judaic practices.

You are dealing with a figure of speech, poetic imagery

Really? And this is your interpretation I suppose, and therefore must be right? I don't see anything poetic in His commandment, nor any need for poetic license, but a simple command which is very clear: ethnos means a tribe or nation, and His Apostles were to make disciples of all the nations of the world (Jews and Gentiles alike).

And I have even greater difficulty believing that some people can be so in love with themselves as to believe they are the true interpreters of everything and all, dismissing corporate knowledge of 2,000 years of an unbroken organism.

Contrary to your imagination, the Church carefully recorded everything it did. Fragmentary and complete documents serve as verifiable recordings as to what the early Church did, what the liturgy looked like, how it was done, etc.

The only oral Tradition you so vehemently object to is that of our Lord Jesus Christ, for He wrote nothing, and what was written about His unwritten teaching is in the Gospels, reduced to writing anywhere from 30 to 60 years after the Pentecost. Until the Gospels were written, the entire Church was run on oral tradition passed on by the Apostles' memory.

He did make that happen. I can, right now, kneel and pray to God and He will meet my need, unless it is selfish

He did NOT! And your example is disingenuous. I wrote "If Christ wanted everyone to read the Bible and interpret it as they please He would have made that happen." Clearly, historically, verifiably, He did not! Otherwise He would have given everyone a Bible, with the New Testament in it, just as he multiplied the fish, He would gave given enough Bibles for everyone to read. And He would have said "Read and understand!" He did not do that. He commissioned hand-picked men to do the work of "making disciples of all nations."

How do we know any oral "Tradition" was really preached?

Simple: we believe it. The Apostles preached orally what Christ preached orally until they wrote the Gospels. By all accounts, the earliest Gospels were not written until about 65 A.D., some 30 years after Christ, and for those 30 years all the Apostles who knew Him preached what he said from their memory. But, we believe that, guided by the Spirit, sent by the Father through the Son, at the pentecost, the Apostles' memories remained true and incorrupt. Otherwise, we couldn't trust the New Testament. We must presume that the authors of all the books of the Bible were "insipred" by the Holy Spirit; otherwise everything is up for criticism and doubt in the Bible.

You need to read the history of the Bible to get an idea when things came into play. Needless to say, after the Gospels were written, the Church never preached anything based on oral tradition.

When an individual, thought his own agency, can reach salvation and eternal life, by seeking the Kingdom, which is within each individual

What you are saying here is not Christianity. This is closer to Buddhism, imo. An individual can not reach his or her own salvation. Christianity teaches that only God saves. We are not instruments of our salvation.

I will agree with you that some sects are drifting toward the heretical fringe

Really? And how do you define "heresy?"

but, then, the Catholic church is awash is sin and sodomy

I am pinging annalex to answer that. This comment is out of line. I will ask you to prove that the "Catholic Church is awash in sin and sodomy." [but be careful lest you eat your own crow with feathers on this one].

So you can't refute what I said?

No, it was so silly I had to laugh out loud.

Jesus was all the time reasoning with the scribes and Pharisees over scripture

Then, maybe, you can explain to me by virtue of reason the mystery of Incarnation, or Resurrection, for starters.

Truth is, Christ never reasoned with anyone. He simply told them the correct interpretation and the truth. That's what we believe, and that's not something we arrived at by virtue of reason, just as we blindly believe that He was and is God the Word Incarnate, that He suffered and died on the Cross and on the third day resurrected. We have no logical or rational "explanation" for this. Faith based on reason is not religion but rationalism.

You cannot hear what I say

You are saying the only church is you (self). Actually, Christianity is a communion of souls. We are one in Christ, but the NT is also clear that this means one theology not billions of individual and relative theologies, just right for everyone's taste and comfort. Relativism is not what Christ preached. Relativism is what you preach, or so it seems to me.

You also deny that there is One true Church, the one that was founded by Christ and given to the Apostles. This, then, Apostolic Church, established by Christ, holds on to the teachings and traditions of the Apostles, and their unbroken line of episcopal successors, as documented in great detail, draws its authority from the Apostolic commission of its clergy, has been universal before the last of the Apostles died at the very end of the first century A.D. (we know because it was written, among others, by +Ignatius, bishop of Antioch — ordained bishop by none other than +Peter, the Apostle who walked and talked with Christ — who called it catholic) and ever since.

This, then Catholic and Apostolic Church, the only One commissioned by Christ, is the true Church which you deny and offer instead a multitude of "personal" churches, based on "inner feelings," and God knows what else.

I hear you. Trust me. I hear every word you say.