Yet it is the Catholic Church who gave to the world the Bible as we know of it.
-—Yet it is the Catholic Church who gave to the world the Bible as we know of it.-—
If the Church is an unreliable teaching authority, then the Bible itself would have to be unreliable. Protestantism saws off the branch it’s standing on.
If the Church once taught without error, but now does, then the gates of hell would have prevailed against Christ’s Church. His Church would be void.
And God allowed Satan to be used to show the faithfulness of Job. He also used the heathens to punish the Israelites. The Romans crucified Jesus which brought our salvation. Just because God uses some group or people doesn’t make them right with God.
But that logic, since most of the Divine writings were established as Scripture before there ever was a church in Rome, and as unlike that entity, Scripture specifically states the Jews were the stewards of Holy Writ, (Rm. 3:2; 9:4) and to whom promises of perpetuation and guidance were given, then all should have submitted to them.
And as, like Rome, they presumed these promises and historical decent promised a level of veracity and perpetuation that forbid any dissent or replacement, thus they challenged the itinerant preacher from Nazareth, “By what authority doest thou these things? and who gave thee this authority to do these things?” (see Mk. 11:27-33)
To which the Lord required that they tell them by whose authority the Baptist acted, which they refused to answer on political grounds, though he also was rejected by them, as Rome rejects any who have not her sanction.
The transcendent issue is one of authority. Why would or should seekers of Truth follow this itinerant preacher from Nazareth who had not the sanction of the historical heavyweights and turned over the tables of their power?
The answer is that, in contrast to them, the Lord Jesus established His claims on Scripture, in word and in the manifest power of God it affirms, as did the apostles and early church. ( Mt. 22:23-45; Lk. 24:27,44; Jn. 5:36,39; Acts 2:14-35; 4:33; 5:12; 15:6-21;17:2,11; 18:28; 28:23; Rm. 15:19; 2Cor. 12:12)
And the most critical aspect of this basis of authority is that the of the gospel of grace, and manifest regeneration by repentant faith in it, and which kind of living effectual faith the church relies upon for its members and for storming the gates of Hell.
And which affirms that the church is that of the living God, (1Tim. 1:15) versus its institutionalized counterpart, Catholic or Protestant. “For the kingdom of God is not in word [self declaration], but in power, ” (1 Cori. 4:20) by “manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.” (2 Corinthians 4:2)